The Lucky Strikes
by That Girl Six
Summary: While investigating a haunting, the brothers are given a stark reminder of just what kind of power a promise can hold, even from beyond the grave.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own my education and won't for many years, so I certainly can't buy myself a copyright. Kripke can owe me until I get my student loan sharks paid off. Until then, I'll just pine away in my little corner of happiness.

**Author's Notes:** This is a quick little four chapter dealio that came to me when my muse finally came back from his extended vacation. It is completely written; it just needs some kinks worked out of the last chapter. So you won't have to wait too long between updates. Enjoy! Rated for language in the other chapters because I've been married too long to the military not to have a mouth.

This story is set between "Fresh Blood" and "A Very Supernatural Christmas".

* * *

**The Lucky Strikes  
**_by That Girl Six_

_Part One_

**— November 19, 1942 —**

Charlie and Lillie Wallace walked into the train station and surfed through the crowds hand in hand just to keep from being separated by forces that they could control. They had enough worldly forces trying to separate them as it was. Her hand was small and cold in his, feeling more like it belonged to an old lady than to the normally bright eyed twenty-one-year-old bride at his side. His normally strong and steady hand shook around hers, jerking in time with the slip-slide of his lower jaw. He sent a glare at a young boy who looked like he might dare to try to walk between them instead of around. It would not be worth it, his clear blue eyes promised.

They found an unoccupied wooden bench and took it up before anyone else could. He put his bags under the bench, tucking his feet around the one side while she gracefully placed her feet on the other side. He took both her hands in his and held them in his lap. He wasn't sure who was shaking more, him or her.

"We'll be back before you know it," he told her quietly. "Inside a year, this will all be over, and we'll get on with our lives. You'll see."

She didn't look at him as she asked, "Can I hold you to that?"

The already flimsy optimistic illusion shattered, Charlie tried to keep the despair from his voice as he said, "Bob isn't going to let anything happen to me, and I won't let anything happen to him. We're trusting you and Susan to do the same for us. You know that, right?"

Lillie nodded and smiled but didn't say anything in return. She didn't feel like trying to keep up the pretense of bravery. They had had enough bravery the night before. Today she was a mess and didn't really care if she looked it or not. Maybe that was the bourbon talking, maybe the fear, but it didn't matter; she didn't feel like it. The fact was, she didn't know when her husband would be coming back to her. It didn't seem appropriate to her that she lie to him in their last moments together. She couldn't send him off with a lie. She wouldn't.

There was an odd, awkward silence that Charlie knew he needed to fill. Silence meant that things were being left unsaid, and he refused to do that to either of them. His girl didn't deserve silence. "This spring, once everything melts off, I want you to talk to my father. He'll help you out with whatever you need done. Okay? Don't be bashful about it. He wants to help. So does my mother."

"I know she means well, but, Honey, the extra-special relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law is one that can't be helped by spending _more_ time together. If anything, your leaving is going to be good for us. I don't think I've ever been so grateful to know people who don't have a telephone."

Charlie tried to stifle a laugh but failed miserably. He secretly had been grateful for that as well when he moved out of his parents' home. There was only so much motherly smothering that a man could take. "She isn't that bad."

"She isn't your in-law," smiled Lillie, the first genuine smile she'd had all morning. "And you can't fix everything. I don't care how good you are with your hands. Some things weren't meant to be fixed. A girl's relationship with her mother-in-law is one of them."

"So then I suppose you aren't going to take her up on the offer to move in with them while I'm gone?"

"Tradition be damned," said Lillie with a sarcastic _Aw, shucks_ snap of her fingers.

"Fine by me." He leaned over and placed an agreeable kiss on her temple. This was one issue he wasn't going to push. Another silence ensued, waiting for him to make it better. He ran through an entire list of things in his head before he settled on "I'll write as soon as I can."

_That's not good enough_, she wanted to say. She wanted to scream at him that it would be nowhere near good enough. Two days of marriage would never be enough. She knew it sounded like she was thinking of him as already dead and not gone, but at this point, her heart didn't want to see the distinction. She just wanted him to stay and be hers and never leave.

When she didn't say anything, he lifted her chin so that she would look him in the eye. He wanted to memorize her eyes and everything else about her. This would be the face that would bring him home. He needed to see in her eyes that she believed it. He covered her left hand with his, a small clinking noise telling him when his wedding band had found hers. It was better than a stack of Bibles.

"I'm coming home to you."

"Can I kill you if you don't?" she asked, trying to laugh through her tears.

"Absolutely," he smiled, thumbing the saltwater away. "So what are you going to do today?"

Before Lillie could answer, an obviously forced cheerfulness came from about ten feet away, announcing the arrival of their best friends. Susan Beckett stood arm-in-arm with Bob, an almost identical vision of homegrown beauty to Charlie's own wife. It was scary sometimes how they thought alike; they'd often thought the same about the girls as well. He knew he was leaving her in the most capable of hands, just as he knew Bob felt the same of Lillie for Susie. Their girls would be worth fighting for, just for the homecoming.

Susan dropped her hand onto her friend's shoulder, squeezed, and informed them all, "She's going ice skating down at the lake. I didn't make him sharpen the blades for nothing, you know." To Lillie specifically, she added, "Don't even think about trying to get out of it. I've had today planned for weeks."

Lillie wiped away what was left of her tears. She had convinced herself to hold off the lies; now she needed to hold off the tears. Their last few minutes would not be about her tears. She said happily enough, "Only if you promise that if we see Bette Jean, I can shove her through the ice."

"That's my lady!" Charlie howled. After five years, his girl was never going to forgive their classmate for daring to throw herself at her man. Lillie made even holding a grudge endearing.

With a dead on poker face, Susan asked the men casually, "So what are you guys planning to do for kicks today?"

Bob and Charlie exchanged looks of incredulity until they both looked at Bob's wife and saw the smile. Their own smiles grew, which they turned on Lillie. The foursome all glanced between one another until they all broke out in laughter loud enough to make other passersby regard them as ill-behaved children. The tension finally broken, they spent the next half an hour back to their usual selves. They all complained of the hangovers they were suffering thanks to their excursions the night before. The girls shared a cigarette while the men each had one of their own, attempting to impress their wives with what most definitely were not smoke _rings_. Bob produced a deck of cards from his pack, which led to a quick hand of poker. The men let the women duke it out at the end, wanting the pleasure of seeing their girls have fun. For their part, Lillie and Susan let them think they'd let them lose.

When their train was called, a silence fell over the quartet once again. The men helped their girls up and took their arms. They made the walk out to the train yard with chills in their stomachs all, and it had nothing to do with the winter temperatures. When they reached the door, Charlie pulled them all to the side, out of the way of other couples and single soldiers making their way to their destinies. He didn't say anything, but he wrapped his left arm around his wife and his right around his best friend. Bob followed suit so that they were in a tight circle of family and friendship.

It was a rare show of affection for Charlie, but he had no doubt in his mind that this needed to be said. His blue eyes shone bright as he said, looking each of them in the eye, "We were lucky enough to find each other in this world. That kind of luck doesn't run out. And if it does, we'll find each other in the next."

"Lucky Strikes," said Bob, nodding.

"Lucky Strikes," said Susan and Lillie together.

"Lucky Strikes," Charlie said, his usual crazy grin right where it belonged.

The husbands and wives said their most secret goodbyes in private, making the promises they knew they couldn't control or keep. They meant them, though. That was the important part.

A whistle screamed through the yard, telling them that the time was truly there upon them. The girls were given their gentlemanly kisses. Their men boarded the train as they joined elbows. As the train began the slow trudge out of the yard and town, Lillie couldn't help but think it all felt a little anti-climactic. Then again, what in her life these days wasn't?

Smiles properly in place, the girls spent the day ice skating with the aid of some very grown up hot chocolate and sandwiches from the Boyd's around the corner. Susan's mother fussed over their wet stockings, throwing them on the oven door to dry out over more hot chocolate (light on the grown up part). Neither woman said so, but it was stunning at how _normal_ it all felt.

Life went on.

It wasn't until well after dark that Lillie finally excused herself. She and Susan made a date for the day after the next. What they were going to do, they didn't know, but they'd deal with it when the time came. It wasn't like they had ever had a problem stirring up trouble without their men before. Whatever it was going to be, it would be ridiculously normal.

When she finally got back to her new home that she had yet to really share with Charlie, Lillie sagged briefly with her back to the screen then went ahead and slammed the wood barrier shut. The oppressive click of the door catching in the lock was louder than what she had ever imagined a gunshot to sound like. She held her breath until her lungs started to protest, slammed her purse down on the kitchen counter, and stalked to the living room. She took one look around the room, palmed her eyes once to wipe away any tears that dared to show themselves, then set about the work of rearranging all of the furniture in the house, moving the heaviest pieces with nothing more on her side than her newfound determination not to cry.

**— December 6, 2007 —**

Somewhere in between Bumfuck and Podunk, Sam Winchester popped two ibuprofen to get himself through until they settled down for the night and he could whip out the heating pad. His back had yet to forgive him for two jobs ago when he'd ever so graciously acted the protector and stopped a brick hurtling for his brother's head with his shoulder. Height had its disadvantages. He could feel his brother dividing his attention seventy-thirty with him and the road, fully in mother hen mode. He was about to tell the guy to be a man and take a Midol when his phone trilled at him.

A nervous laugh answered him first, as if the caller couldn't believe he had actually picked up the line. There was a beat and then a reluctant sigh before a woman asked, "Is this either Sam or Dean Winchester?"

"Can I help you?" he asked cautiously.

"This is ridiculous. I feel ridiculous just saying this. Look, you don't know me, and you're probably going to think I'm nuts, but a friend of a friend, or a cousin of a friend, or you know, whatever . . . " The woman spurt out what she said so fast that Sam barely caught every other word. She must have realized how she sounded because she took a deep breath, blew it out hard, and pulled another in, sounding like she was plastering a smile on her face as she started again. "Sorry. I have a little problem, and I was told that you might be able to help me — if you're Sam or Dean Winchester."

Sam glanced over at Dean, who was carefully glancing between his brother and the road ahead of them. When Dean cautiously shrugged his face at him, Sam answered with raised eyebrows, "This is Sam."

"Oh, thank God. If you were somebody just playing with me, I was going to lose my mind, really."

"What can we do for you, Miss . . . ?"

"Andreea Oian. Two 'e's. Yeah, I know. My mother thought she was doing me a favor, but I'm sure you can guess it hasn't been the best thing for meeting people. It's a curse, I promise you. People can't spell it right, and even if they do, they can't pronounce it right. I end up like that girl on 9_0210_ being an _Ah n-dray-uh_ instead of just plain old Andreea. Or people try to do me a favor and call me 'Andy', which is really not a good way to start with me, and then we have chaos. Can I tell you how much I hated the first day of school? Seriously, the name is a curse. You don't have to tell me otherwise just to be polite. It's okay." Again she stopped, apparently realizing that she'd started to ramble once again. She went through another series of deep breathing exercises while Sam glanced at Dean, who rolled his eyes. He was apparently happy to let Sam deal with it. When she came back, she didn't talk any slower than she had during her other rants, but she did sound a little less shaky. "Okay, I'm okay. Like I said, this is going to sound crazy, and you can tell me if you think I'm crazy because I definitely think I'm going crazy even though my friend's friend seems to think that I'm not even close to crazy even though she's never met me, but she says that you would know that I'm not crazy because you deal with crazy all the time and don't think anything of it, so — "

Sam laughed now, wanting to make sure that she took a breath and gave his mind time to catch up. Man, this woman could talk MicroMachines Guy fast, or at the very least, give the guy a run for his money. "Okay, okay, Andreea. Take a breath. I'm sure I'll believe you. Just try to tell me what the problem is."

She didn't bother with the breath, but she did finally move on to the explanation. "My house. My brand new house that I spent far too much money on for just myself because there sure as hell isn't a man in my remote future, let alone near future, which means I'm probably going to become an old bitty in this ridiculously expensive house that I just fell in love with on sight and am now having a freaking heart attack over because this perfect house also happens to be a freaking _haunted_ house, and I have no idea what to do because, I mean, really, who actually buys a freaking haunted house? But I can't afford to move out and — "

"Andreea? Andreea, slow down. It's okay. Seriously, take a breath, and I'll see what I can do about helping you out. Where are you?"

"In the kitchen. It's really a great kitchen. All the original woodwork and everything. The cabinets actually go all the way to the ceiling. They don't make houses with cabinetry like that anymore, you know; for some reason everyone has to have that space for spiders and mice to crawl on on top of their cabinets now. There is never enough room for a plant to actually grow up there, and really, how is a plant supposed to grow there anyway when the sun doesn't exactly get up there? And if it's for the extra storage space, finish the damned cabinet, People, and you'll have the extra storage space. But apparently no one thought to consult me or, you know, the logic police on that one. I really don't get people."

This time, Sam waited until Andreea got her rant out of her system, finding her kind of fascinating. He'd never heard anyone talk that fast without hurting themselves. When she stopped for air, he broke in and asked, "No, where in the country are you? So that I can figure out how to get to you?"

"Oh, right. Because it doesn't do you any good to know about the house until you can actually see the house because you can't exactly tell over the phone if a place is haunted. I mean, you can't, can you?"

"Over the phone? No, but if you'll just tell us where you are, we can come by and check it out."

"Oh. Um, Saint Cloud? Minnesota?"

Sam wracked his brain for a moment, trying to remember why he knew the name. Pastor Jim had lived just on the other side of the Minnesota-Iowa border, so he knew the southern portion of the state fairly well, but once he got north of the Twin Cities, he didn't exactly know his way around. A few names were familiar but didn't entirely stand out. He reached over the seat into the back to find the atlas, but to save time he also asked her, "Can you give me a general direction from Minneapolis where you are?"

"A little over an hour and a half north."

"So between there and Duluth?"

"West, not East. If you take 494 around the west side then take 94 north once it comes back together out of the suburbs and then pick up 15 when you see the exit, you'll go right by us. That's the easiest way, at least. You could always get on 10 once you get to Clearwater so that you get to my side of town without having to drive the traffic on Division because it really, really sucks this time of year to drive on Division on the weekend, I have to tell you, but it's up to you. It's not so bad, though. I don't mind. I like traffic. I don't think of it as wasting time like most people do, you know? It's nice to just have some time to myself. Yeah, I have a lot of time to myself once I get to this freaking haunted barn of mine, but then again, if it's haunted, I'm not really alone, am I? That's the whole problem, isn't it?"

Stifling another laugh because he didn't want to sound like he was laughing at her problem, Sam asked her to wait a moment, covered the phone, then turned to his brother. "How far are we from Minneapolis?"

Dean rolled his eyes up as if the answer were magically on the roof of the car. "Five hours maybe? What's going on?"

Sam looked at his watch. It was already nearly four in the afternoon as it was. "Okay, Andreea? We're still out quite a ways, but we'll head up there and give you a call first thing in the morning, if that's all right with you?"

"Really? Seriously? Oh, that would be so fantastic. I can't thank you enough, because I know how crazy all of this sounds. I know I sound crazy. I was told you wouldn't think I was crazy, but everyone I've talked to about this thinks I'm crazy. My realtor is seriously going to be hearing from me about this. Of course, she'll probably tell me that I should have specified 'no haunted homes' on my application of requests, you know? She's like that, the anal retentive bitch. I'm just so glad that you picked up the phone. I couldn't believe it when Kim told me to call you. I thought for sure she would think I was nuts, but she said that you had helped out her friend or her cousin or whoever, and that it would — "

Out of curiosity, Sam interrupted her there and asked, "We did?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, I forgot. I was supposed to tell you that Jenny and the kids say 'hi' and that you're supposed to call or stop by when you get the chance."

"Wow," Sam breathed. That was unexpected. Still, if Jenny was acting as their new publicity machine, that meant that everything was still okay in their 'shared' home, so to speak. It meant that Sari and Ritchie were safe and that the poltergeist that had threatened their lives really had been taken care of. Someone was finally living safely in the house that had meant anything but safety to Sam and his family. That was really good news. Really good. "Um, yeah. I will. Well, try to get some sleep tonight and we'll talk about all of this tomorrow. We'll be in a motel somewhere in town, though, if anything comes up after, say, ten or so. All right?"

"Really? Oh, wow, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. I can't believe it. Kim told me that Jenny said you were stand up guys, but I was a little nervous, you know, because really, who in their right mind believes in this stuff? I mean, I do _now_, because I'd be crazy not to, but it still sounds so freaking crazy, and I can't — "

"It's no problem. We were looking for a new job anyway. Get some sleep, Andreea. We'll see you tomorrow." Before she could start up again, Sam closed his phone, cutting the connection. With a wry smile on his face, he stuck a finger in his ear and rattled it around, shaking his head. Man, that woman could talk fast. He whistled, "Okay."

"Gig?"

"Yeah. Possible haunted house." Or possession. No one talked that fast without a little help. "A friend of a friend or cousin of Jenny's actually."

"'Jenny from Lawrence', 'Jenny in our old house' Jenny?"

"Yeah. We're supposed to call her, by the way."

Immediately Dean's gaze darkened. "What's wrong? Something with the house?"

"Nothing that this woman said anyway. She probably just wants to make sure we're both kicking and breathing."

Dean's grip on the steering wheel lessened a little. "She really got our name from Jenny?"

The urge was inexplicable except to say that, if Sam was going to call his brother on not acting like his brother, he needed to call himself on it, too. He hadn't been acting like a real little brother lately. He needed to keep his big brother on his toes. The urge won out — not that he really fought it — and Sam starting singing, "_It's a small world after all. It's a small world after — _"

A backhanded whap into his chest only made him stop long enough to catch his breath. Dean responded by cranking the stereo to full volume. Sam just sang louder (if you could call what he was doing '_singing_').

Finally, Dean growled, "God, you're a pain in the ass."

"Hey, it takes talent to get to my level."

The excessively goofy grin on his little brother's face made Dean want to laugh, cry, and pummel the kid in no specific order. Sam looked so _young_ when he smiled like that, like his big brother was the king of the world and together they were unstoppable. Sometimes he forgot just how incredibly young they both were.

"You always were an overachiever."

Sam thought about violating the anti-schmaltz rule to tell Dean he was that way because that's what his big brother taught him to be, but he wasn't sure he wanted to go there either. Things had been good the last few weeks. Going there could change that in a not so good way. So instead Sam opted to stay the little brother and belted out, "_This is the song that never ends . . . _"

Dean thought about telling his brother that there was a special circle in Hell reserved for annoying little brothers like him, but Sam was smiling and he didn't want that to go away. Things had been almost back to normal lately. He couldn't risk it. So instead he started to sing out in contrast, "_I'm Henry the Eighth, I am, Henry the Eighth, I am, I am — _"

It was a good ten minutes before they called _Jinx_ and another five before the truce.

"So tell me about the job."

"Cold, snow, haunted house: what else do you want to know?" On the sideways look he got, Sam explained, "I don't know. She somehow knows someone who knows someone who knows Jenny. I couldn't really catch much with as fast as she was talking. I told her that we'd call her in the morning. Other than that, I don't think there's much to tell yet. She mentioned some banging and the fact that modern interior design sucks. It might not be anything at all, but until something else pops up, there's no reason we can't head up that way. We can always swing by Bobby's if it's a lost cause. I guess I'm looking at it as, if Jenny told her to call, something this woman said must have meant something to her."

"Then let's hope all of her appliances know well enough to stay plugged in," said Dean as he stepped on the gas. As an affirmative that they would take the job, he tapped his fingertips on the atlas and ordered, "Find my road, man."

Once they found their way, the trip was smooth sailing. Sam slept off the ache in his shoulders again with only a little mothering from his brother. They made only one stop so that by the time Dean rolled into the parking lot at the Country Inn and Suites, Sam could have sworn he'd only been asleep for a few minutes. He did have to blink a few times at the signage to make sure he wasn't entirely lost.

"Here? Really?"

Dean shrugged. "They have whirlpools, and your back needs it. It's not exactly the Ritz, kiddo."

"I know, but . . . "

"It's an extra ten bucks a night over what we would have done otherwise. It's okay."

Sam knew it was a lot more than ten dollars over their budget that they were looking at, but Dean looked so insistent about it that he wasn't going to argue the point. If his brother wanted a room instead of a hole for a few days, who was he to rain on the guy's parade? They were both making an effort these days. This was one more that could easily be made.

Neither of them could remember the last time they had been so comfortable for a night. Dean had been right; the whirlpool had been exactly what Sam had needed. It had put Dean out faster than if he'd been knocked on the head. Sam was up first, as usual, and brought breakfast back to the room for them both. They actually ate decently, still in bed. They took their time getting themselves together for the morning before calling Andreea, whose early morning enthusiasm was enough to make even Sam want to go back to bed.

The directions she gave them were easy enough to follow so that they were pulling up to their new job just short of ten a.m. Before Dean even had the car in park, a woman in her late thirties came rushing out the door, wrapping a long sweatercoat around herself with one hand while blowing her mouth on the other. Her enthusiastic wave had Dean fighting not to reach across his brother and lock the door to protect them both.

Not a possession, huh?

From the outside, there were two things that screamed to them that the house would be haunted in a slasher flick: the fact that it obviously hadn't seen a paint brush in thirty years and the way the tree out front seemed to be guarding the front door (from things coming in or getting out, it wasn't entirely clear). Still, it looked pleasant enough in the daylight. The place certainly needed some work done, but the sun shining on the snow helped to make the need appear a little less dire. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask if any little old lady previous owners had kept bodies in the basement, just to be safe.

Andreea chatted away about how much she loved the town from the day she started at the university and had just known that she was meant to be in this town for the rest of her life while Sam and Dean unpacked a few preliminary supplies from the trunk. She kept on talking as she led them around to the back of the house into the pantry. They all kicked their shoes off then half-tripped over them to get up the two steps up into the kitchen. She shut the door behind them and ushered them through into the dining room.

She stopped them there in front of the formal dining table where she had put out a considerable spread of breakfasty foods. "I didn't know what you would like," she started. "So I just got a little of everything. I mean, really, you never know what to do, and I have never been very good in the kitchen, so I didn't do it, but I put a call in at Cub last night and they got it ready for me right away. They're really good about that. I get them to do all of my short notice catering when I need to. So there's a little of everything. I figured you didn't get a real breakfast. Continental breakfast isn't a real breakfast. And it was the least I could do since you guys came into town so quickly for me. Where were you, by the way? Did I even remember to ask? Because I know I was a little nervous last night and — "

Giving her the opportunity to catch her breath, Dean said, "That's awfully kind of you. Thank you."

"Yeah, it looks great," chimed Sam.

A few minutes later, they were all sitting around the one end of the table, munching away like it was the first time they had ever seen a doughnut. Sam was kind of grateful for it because it kept Andreea from talking too fast. He had a feeling he'd have a wicked headache from her company after too long. She was a nice person, but it took an awful lot of stamina to keep up with her. While Dean started in on his third cream-filled something, Sam tried to get things moving along while he knew Andreea would have to stop talking to take bites and breathe.

"Why don't you tell us about the house?"

Andreea nervously downed the entire contents of her juice glass, licked some errant grape juice from her fingers, then rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Is that a good idea? To, you know, talk about it actually in the house?"

To answer her question, Dean pulled his EMF reader from his inside jacket pocket and turned it on. There was a slight initial flicker in the yellow end of the spectrum, but after that, the device remained quiet. "You see this," he asked, explaining. "When this little baby gets up in the red end, then we have things to be slightly concerned about, but until then, we're fine to talk. There's nothing in this room."

"Well, let's see then. Um, it still has all of the original woodwork from 1905 when the house was built, except in the new section. There was a fire in 1930 after the original owner killed himself and his wife after they lost everything in the market crash like everybody else. Or is that killed her then himself? He can't really do much after blowing himself away, right? But anyway, he apparently knocked over a kerosene lamp after he blew his brains out, which I guess _does_ count as doing something after, considering it sent the northwest corner of the place up in smoke. The neighbors were able to put it out and save most of the original structure. The people who bought it after rebuilt that section and sold it off after that. It changed hands a few times over the next ten years until another couple bought it in 1942 or somewhere around there. I didn't exactly _ask_ for all these details, but you know realtors: they just talk and talk and talk. He died just a few years ago, by the way. It's been empty ever since. Sad, really. It's such a beautiful house. You can tell he loved this place. He restored every inch of it, loved it like it was his mistress. I should be so lucky to get a man to lay his hands on me the way he did the woodwork in this place."

When Sam had told him that this woman talked like Speedy Gonzales on cheap crack, Dean hadn't quite believed him, until now. He had wanted, several times, to interrupt her and tell her that this wasn't exactly what he was looking for — research was what he had his trusty sidekick geek brother for — but she didn't sound like she was going to come up for air any time soon. Then, when she managed to realize that she'd made a joke and found herself funny, he was able to jump in and hopefully keep her quiet for at least thirty seconds before the cattle came out of the gate for auction. "Can you actually just tell us what's been going on that you thought you needed to call us? You must have had to go through a lot of work to find us, so something had to have scared you pretty good there."

"Finding you wasn't the hard part. A friend of a friend of a friend and all that. This woman from Missouri who knows my friend's cousin was happy to put me in touch with you. The cousin said she wouldn't give me your number herself, but if I talked to this woman and she said it was okay, then she would be willing to let me have the number. Apparently this woman is a really good judge of character or something. She made me chatter at her for a good ten minutes before she would even let me talk about what was going on here in the house. She wouldn't say why except that she only sent the real deal your way. After that, she made me keep talking about the house and, wow, did she make me go on and on. I was starting to think she was making fun of me the way she kept asking all these questions. It's not like I have time to just sit and talk all day, you know what I'm saying? But she eventually gave me your number. So really, other than some expensive phone calls and something akin to the Spanish Inquisition, you weren't all that hard to find."

Both Dean and Sam perked up at that, but it was Sam who asked, "You talked to Missouri?"

Dean immediately followed up with a question of his own, before she could get a good wind going. "And what exactly did you tell her?"

"Like I said, she wanted to know all about the house and me. I swear, if we were within driving distance, she would have wanted a blood sample before she even told me your names. She really likes you guys, I think. She was kind of bossy, too. She reminded me a lot of my mother. It was scary. But once she was okay with me, she just wanted to know about the house. She asked about how much I knew about the history of the place and then what I have been seeing and hearing around here to make me call someone. I felt like I was at a job interview or something. It was just weird. But she gave me the number, and here you are. I can't believe you're here. It just makes it all that much more real, you know? I mean, they have those stupid shows on TV where people claim to be ghost hunters and all that, and they try to scare each other for the ratings and all that, but you never really imagine that there are people out there who really do what you do. The woman on the phone said that you were the real deal, though, and that I had better be good to you or she would hunt me down, have me thrown in jail, and tell the warden to tell the prisoners that I was a kiddie raper then let them have at me. She was pretty specific about what she wanted them to do to me, too, if I got either of you in any way hurt. Why would she think you would get hurt? I mean, I have a ghost in my house, not a rabid dog."

"Rabid dogs would be nice," snorted Dean. He was obviously getting this from a nervous second-hand source, but he felt a small rush of affection for the psychic who he had only met the once. She may have been instrumental in setting their father off on the journey that their lives had taken, but she hadn't washed her hands of the responsibility of that. She still looked after them anyway. It was kind of nice. His comment got an emphatic roll of the eyes from Sam, though, so he shoved the impulse down and tried to find a better way to explain to their job what Missouri had been trying to say. "Your friend's cousin had a poltergeist in her house that pretty much tore the place apart and tried to kill her kids. A rabid dog would have been easier to deal with. Missouri and Sam both got tossed around pretty good. That's all she meant. She means well. Jenny probably made her say it, too."

For the first time since their arrival, Andreea looked a little afraid. "Is that going to happen? I haven't had that kind of trouble. It certainly hasn't tried to kill me. Do you think it's going to try to kill me?"

This time Sam gave his brother a very pointed look that clearly said _Way to be, Genius_. Trying to be a little more gentle than his brother, Sam said, "No, I don't think your spirit is going to get violent on you. If it was going to, it would have by now, I think. Missouri and Dean are both being a little over-dramatic here. But why don't you tell us what you told her so we can figure out exactly what it is that we _are_ going to have to look forward to? What makes you think you have a spirit instead of, say, mice or something?"

"Banging. Lots and lots of banging. At all hours of the night. Even Mighty Mouse doesn't have the strength to make the kind of noise that's coming from the attic and a few of the other rooms. There're heavy footsteps in the hallways, and let me tell you, hard wood floors don't exactly muffle the noise, if you know what I mean. You'd think an entire herd of buffalo was stampeding my kitchen half the time. It's crazy. I hear crying sometimes, if I'm not listening for it. As soon as I hear it and try to figure out where it's coming from, it stops. It's this really awful sounding moaning, actually. The windows rattle, and it isn't just from the wind. I know, Minnesota and wind and winter and all that, but really, it isn't coming from outside. It's like the wind is coming from inside the house. It gets really cold, no matter how high I have the heat on. And banging. Did I mention the banging, because there's a lot of banging. I'm not kidding. Lots and lots of banging."

When she came up for air and a bite of her danish, Dean asked, "Where does it sound like the banging is coming from?"

"All over. It echoes. But the thudding ones sound like they're up in the attic somewhere. Most of the time, it just sounds like a hammer hitting the walls. I swear, I think I'm going to wake up one morning and find all the drywall on the floor, but it hasn't happened yet. I thought the ceiling was going to come down the other night, too. I'll hear bangs coming from down in the kitchen in the middle of the night, but then I'll come down and there won't be a single dustmite out of place. I can boil water in the tub, but as soon as I get a toe in, it'll be ice cold. It's really starting to freak me out. The crying is the hard part. I can't stand to hear people cry."

"Neither can I," said Dean sympathetically. It was the truth, sort of. He was never more uncomfortable than when any one of the revolving door of strangers in their path started to cry. Spirits, though, when they cried, all it did was make him want to get the job over faster. Dean dusted the crumbs from his hands, pushed back his chair, and offered his hand to their hostess. "If you don't mind, I think it's probably time for you to give us a tour."

"You bet," Andreea said rather enthusiastically.

She guided them through the first level of the house, pointing out different sections that had either been rebuilt or were of the original design, and talking like they were merely guests at a housewarming party. Here and there, both brothers would check the EMF for signs of any activity, but there was nothing to be found beyond the original oak shelving units and the ornate carvings in the stone of the fireplace.

The second level of the house was much colder than the first. Sam quietly nudged Dean and pointed to the green readings they were getting as Andreea took them into the first room of the master bedroom suite.

"Did you leave that on?" asked Dean as they walked through the sitting room.

"What? The radio? Oh, yeah. I hate being in a quiet house, so I always have a stereo turned on on every floor. I suppose it's going to be a bitch of a habit when I see the electric bill, but I have to. I grew up sharing a bedroom with my sister, so I never had any privacy. I don't know how to be alone without at least some noise. It's silly, I know, I'm a grown woman and I need my security blankie, but when you live alone, you're willing to look like an idiot if it means you aren't spooking yourself when you walk into your own reflection. Now granted, that would probably be a little easier if I wasn't living in a freaking haunted house, but a girl's gotta do, you know? So any spikes on that thingy to show you exactly where my ghost is hanging out? Did I tell you that I named him? Yeah, I figured if I was going to be yelling at something to stop making all the racket in the middle of the night, I better at least have a name to call the damned thing; and I've seen too many episodes of _Angel_, so I started calling him _Phantom Denis_ just because it seemed entirely logical to me at the time. I wonder if he _is_ a Denis. That would be funny. At least, I think it would be funny. You never really can tell what's going to be funny to people. I can't. But then, I do tend to have my own little world, if you can't tell."

He didn't mean to, but Sam zoned out a moment, ignoring Andreea's little tangent. He heard the song on the CD player, caught in a half-memory that iced his stomach. He couldn't remember where he had heard it or why it was stuck in his mind, but he heard it there anyway. As he listened to the words, though, he wished like hell it would go away. It struck just a little too close to home these days. "Not to be rude," he interrupted both Andreea and Neil Young. "But could we do something about the music? It's kind of creeping me out."

Dean's eyes widened questioningly as he looked toward the CD player, obviously planning to give the music some attention, but no sooner were the words out of Sam's mouth than the EMF lit up like a Christmas tree. The last note in the chorus snapped off abruptly as the stereo switched to the radio function, shot up in volume to the top of the scale, and blared out another song that sounded vaguely familiar.

"Thank you, Denis!" Andreea threw both hands up in the air in exasperation. To the brothers, she said as loudly as she could over the music, "He seems to like that one. If he doesn't like what I'm listening to, he'll throw this on."

"The same genre or the exact same song every time?" asked Dean, showing Sam the once again yellowed EMF.

"Same song, I think, but I can't tell for sure. Those songs from around then all tend to sound the same to me. I don't think he cares for the long-haired hippy riffraff, as my mother calls it. Can you tell she was a Republican back in the day?" She looked around the room, tilting her head back so that she was almost addressing the ceiling and said, "Sorry, Denis! I didn't mean to. I'll try to be better. But you can see I have guests, so could you please turn it down?"

Immediately the music was returned to a reasonable level.

Andreea perked up, flipped her hair, and said genuinely, "Thanks, Denis! You're the best! I mean, you're the _only_ ghost I've ever had, but considering the horror stories I'm guessing these two could tell me, we could probably rank you up there with being one of the best. 'Best' on a scale of one to ten, ten being 'best', 'best' being not killing people or scaring little kids on more than just Halloween, I think I could easily give you a seven. I'd rate you higher, but you really do kind of scare me, because the banging around up there in the middle of the night isn't exactly conducive to beauty rest, you know what I'm saying?"

Sam wrinkled his nose at the way his question was about to come out, but there really was no good way to ask it. "Does Denis spend a lot of time in your bedroom?"

She cocked her head for a moment before shrugging her eyebrows at him. "You know, I can't tell? This isn't exactly normal for me. I mean, I notice things, but I don't really notice things. I probably should have paid more attention, especially since I called you all the way up here, but I don't know. Does it matter?"

"It might," said Sam. "We never know what will help us figure out who a spirit used to be."

"You really have to know who a ghost is? Isn't there some way to just get it to leave me alone without having to know who it is?"

"If we're going to get rid of it, yeah," said Dean. From the look on Andreea's face, that didn't sound like a very good idea to her, so he kept the details of what 'getting rid of' a ghost would entail. He tried to put it a little more gently by saying, "We can't put a spirit _to rest_ without knowing where it's buried."

Yeah, that didn't come out any better.

"I just think it'll be a lot harder to do if I have a name to go with the bang, you know?"

Sam swooped in the for the rescue, seeing that look on his brother's face that warned that Dean was about to say something really stupid — not that Andreea hadn't set him up beautifully for it. "Why don't you show us the rest of the house, Andreea? I think we're getting closer to finding out where your spirit might be hiding out the most. That would be a good place for us to start so that we can help you out."

"Right, sure. Of course." With a spin of her heel, the woman started back through the sitting room and toward the door, talking about how much closet space she had and how she had never imagined having this much closet space when she was in college. "You never realize just how important it is to have your own space until you start to miss having someone there all the time. Trust me. It's weird to suddenly have even a closet to yourself when you've always had to share one. That's why I like the radio. Even if I didn't have Denis banging around, I'd still think it was too quiet in here. If I was planning on being single my whole life, I wouldn't have bought this place. There's only so much quiet a girl can take, you know?"

As their hostess led them out of the bedroom, Dean nudged his brother in the side and asked quietly, "How much cash do you have on you?"

"Why?"

"Tour Guide Barbie is going to drive me into an early grave if we don't get her out of here. I can't work like this."

Sam stopped for a moment, even though Andreea was already half way down the hall (albeit completely oblivious to the lack of company, if her chattering about them going into the reconstructed rooms of the house was any indication). "We can't just kick the woman out of her own house because you don't like her."

"Consider it for her safety and ours. Besides, I don't like it. If _Phantom Denis_ . . . " Dean rolled his eyes at the idiocy of that one. "Or whoever this guy is can control the electronics in the house, what else can he do? Banging is one thing: they all can do that. But we don't know how old this spirit is. It might not be as helpful when it realizes what she brought us here for."

Realizing that, as much as he hated the idea, his brother was right, Sam said, "I can probably cough up forty for the night if I have to, but can we just get rid of her for the afternoon first before we worry about shipping her off? We're going to need that cash if we have to stay in town too long. It's supposed to dip below zero tonight."

They had been very careful lately to avoid even motels on the off chance that any of their credit cards had been tagged, squatting in abandoned houses instead, but that wasn't going to be an option in the dead of a Minnesota winter. Call him 'crazy', but he liked his room temperature to be above freezing. Last night had been a luxury, but it wasn't one that they could afford to take on for more than two or three more nights if they were going to have to foot Andreea's bill, too. The point taken, Dean nodded. "All right. But really, we do need to get her out of here, at least for now. Something about this house isn't right, and I'd rather not have a civilian caught in the crossfire if this goes south."

"Yeah."

"You guys coming?" hollered Andreea from a few doors down.

Sam quickly called back, "Yep. Sorry."

Once they caught back up with their hostess, Dean jutted his chin toward a door at the end of the hallway. "What's in there?"

"That's the stairway to the attic. He seems to spend most of his time up there. Don't ask me what he's doing. He could be spooning out his escape route, for all I know; he won't let me in. He just keeps banging and dropping things. I have no idea what's up there. I don't think the last owners cleaned it out before putting the house on the market, and like I said, it's been for sale now for a few years now, so who knows? I suppose anyone could have been up there in the meantime. I've tried asking him to let me come up and see what's going on. I thought that maybe if I could help him find whatever it is he's looking for, he'd be a happy camper and we could have a little less noisy of a peaceful coexistence, but so far, he's not in for negotiating. I'm sure it was probably a silly idea, but I didn't know what else to do. Anything else seemed less than polite. After all, he was probably here a long time before me. He had dibs, whoever 'he' is. You know, I've seen _Ghostbusters_. I really hope you guys aren't going to catch him and stuff him into a little itty bitty box like they did. That's just cruel, if you ask me. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, I suppose; it would be cruel to kick him out of his own house. You don't, do you? Put them in little boxes?"

"No," said Sam simply while he watched his brother's cautious approach to the doorway.

Dean got one hand on the doorknob but didn't manage to get even a quarter of a turn in before he was quite unceremoniously dumped on his ass in between Andreea and her little kitschy decorative table. The Christmas poinsettia she had recently over-watered fell into his lap, leaves down. Sam was able to save the rest of the stand from tipping onto his brother, but lost his grip on it, sending it tipping the other way. The little knick knack on the undershelf slid right off, chipping off on the wall on the way down. Sam winced, not sure who to apologize to first.

Taking the hand held out to him, Dean stood up and stared at the door with a pout to rival Sam's usual expression. "A _'please leave'_ would have been enough, Dude."

(End Part One of Four)


	2. Chapter 2

**The Lucky Strikes**

_Part Two_

— **June 6, 1944 —**

It was completely irrational. Lillie knew that. There was no way that she was looking out the window and seeing Charlie standing there watching her from under the chestnut tree. He was thousands of miles away in England, and England was not Minnesota. It was Europe. Plain and simple. It looked like home; he'd told her so. But looking wasn't being. He couldn't be over there and be right outside at the same time. This was not right.

Rationality didn't stop her from wanting to believe it. She wanted, with all her heart, to believe it. She had taken her husband's advice and done whatever she could to avoid reading the newspapers on a daily basis like the other wives and mothers, searching for news or clues that he would soon be returning home. The Sunday papers were enough. Anything else she heard was hopeful rumor that she didn't have time for. Given that, it was entirely possible that she had missed the news. If Hitler had done them all a favor and rid the Earth of his godforsaken presence, there would be parades in the streets and fireworks in the air. That was the kind of news that wasn't going to be missed. So no, she hadn't missed anything.

Charlie was not and could not be there, simple as that. And yet, there he was.

Every impulse she had told her to run out the door and embrace her husband. She had earned that much. A year and a half of waiting and loving him from thousands of miles away in places that she had never even dreamed of going to was more than penance enough for anything she had done wrong in her life. That candy bar she took from the grocer when she was five? Gone. That time she stuck gum in Bette Jean's hair and sparked that rivalry she'd had going with the bitch ever since? Erased. The time she lost her temper and told her father just exactly what he could do with his good intentions? Forgiven ten fold. She had done hard time here. She had earned the right to have some happiness. Charlie was her happiness.

The hell with it.

Her hand wrapped around the necklace that hung about her neck, thumbing it as if it were a protective ward. She stepped into the shoes she'd left by the door the night before (color coordination be damned) and cautiously opened the screen door. She stepped around it, keeping the screen between herself and her path for as long as possible. Then, naked of all protections, she came around to the tree to find Charlie still standing there, all smiles.

She didn't know what it was that stopped her, but something about the way he was smiling at her told her to stay back. She didn't like his smile. It was off, completely off. Where everything about Charlie was normally warm and carefree, this man standing under their tree exuded only cold. He didn't say anything either. No pet names, no shouts of happiness, no declarations of home or love. He only stood there like he was lost.

"Charlie?"

"LILLIE!"

She turned, knowing even before she did it that she'd see Susan running down the street. Under her arm, the woman carried a half-shredded bundle of something like her life depended on it. Lillie glanced between them to see what happened, but her best friend didn't seem to see her husband, nor him her. A little spooked, she crossed the bright green of the lawn to meet Susie on the sidewalk, hoping the woman wouldn't trip on the way down the hill. She'd done that too often the last year and a half.

"LILLIE! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!"

"RIGHT BACK ATCHA!"

Mr. Thompson from across the street looked up then, glaring first at Susan then Lillie. He shook his head and bent back over his garden hose, his mouth moving with what was probably some insult about their wild and unashamed ways. Honestly, these girls today . . . and they were married to boot! What were their mothers thinking? At least, Lillie was pretty sure she knew the man was thinking along those lines. He had the condescending leer he had whenever Susan (or anyone else, for that matter) came over. She didn't like him much either.

Susan arrived, panting heavily, her chest heaving. Lillie's eyes slipped to the side, directing her to the man across the street. Susan gave him a dirty look, reached up to undo the top two buttons of her dress, then made sure to be completely facing him as her chest heaved with the attempt to regain her breath. Mr. Thompson went inside the house, huffing the entire way.

When it looked like the show was over, Susan took Lillie by the arm and guided her back toward the house. She tapped the tips of the fingers of her free hand on the still folded newspaper and explained, "Dad said they sold out down at Boyd's before all the papers were even unpacked. None of the other papers have said anything, but it _is_ the _New York Times_. That has to count for something, right? I mean, look at it!"

Unable to get around her friend's enthusiasm, Lillie glanced down to read the headline. She looked back at Susan, who was grinning like a complete fool. She wanted to believe that this was the same good news that Susie did, but everything in her was screaming that this was far from good news for her. She looked back down at the paper, reading it as she walked, not even noticing how Susan opened the door for her or pulled out a chair for her as she planted herself at the kitchen table. Again she read the headlines, parsing for any sort of subtext to be found.

_ALLIED ARMIES IN FRANCE IN THE HAVRE-CHERBOURG;  
GREAT INVASION IS UNDER WAY_

Susan placed both of her hands over Lillie's nearest hand, her fingers trembling. Whether it was from the excitement of possibility or the adrenaline from the run, she didn't know, but she didn't exactly care. This was good news. For the first time since this had all begun, there was a sign that maybe, just maybe, their men were going to be coming home safe a lot sooner than they had dared to hope. She couldn't keep the hope out of her voice as she tried to get her best friend to share in her wish-making. "Maybe this is it? Maybe this really will all be over soon, and they'll be home soon. Come on, Lil, say something."

Lillie looked over her shoulder toward the window where she could see the tree guarding her and the house. Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Whether she had really seen him or not, she did not like what seeing him meant at all. Either way, real or imagined, it could not be a good sign for Charlie.

Her voice broke as she whispered, "How long, do you think, before we get casualty lists?"

**— December 7, 2007 —**

Andreea looked skeptically down at the keys to her own vehicle which Dean had put in her hand. "Are you sure about this? Because that really didn't look anywhere near safe. He's never done that before. I am seriously thinking that calling you was a bad idea. I mean, if he didn't do that to me, he must have at least some sort of a soft spot for me, but if he's going to go doing whatever the hell that was to you — which, by the way, what _was_ that and do you do it often, because if you do it often, I would really think about a new line of work — and do you think he's going to do it again, because, really, I don't want him doing that to you because of me. That isn't exactly the way to get on Santa's Good List, you know what I mean?"

Dean bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something stupid or mean. It was barely enough to do the trick as he said, "Go. Get out for a few hours, and let us see what we can do from here. We probably can't take care of anything tonight, but we might be able to at least figure out what we're dealing with up there. If _Ghostbusters_ bothered you, you're not going to like what we might have to do to get in."

Sam smiled at her even as he casually stomped — really hard — on his brother's foot. "It's going to be fine, Andreea. But Dean's right: we aren't going to know who is up there until we have a look around. From what you told us, there are probably a couple of options. Give us a chance to work. I'm sure you have plenty of Christmas shopping to do or a movie to see, right? So go, have a good time. We can handle it from here. Really."

The woman still eyed them uncomfortably, although neither brother was sure what she was necessarily uncomfortable about. She gnawed her lower lip, glancing between them and the door to her garage. "You'll be here when I get back?"

"If we aren't, we're just at the motel. You can call us any time," said Sam. "We'll call you if there's any trouble."

"Just . . . Be careful. He isn't worth getting hurt over," she said quietly, looking at Dean and unconsciously rubbing at the back of her own head. "I'd rather see that plant dumped all over than your head. That damned thing was ugly anyway. I only kept it around because my mother will notice when she comes over that the perfect plant that she shoved on her perfectly gracious but unwilling daughter is missing. She shoves one of those things on me every damned year. Seriously. I don't have the heart to tell her how much I hate them. You do stupid things for your mom, you know? Ugly plants are just one of many things on the list. Ugly tables with ugly Christmas plants can be replaced; my mother and I have had many fights over the years and will have many more. Okay?"

"We will," Dean offered with a brilliant smile. Suddenly she seemed a little less annoying for a stranger. Well, maybe not less annoying, but certainly more thoughtful. "Head out. Shop. Do whatever it is that people do with only sixteen shopping days left."

With a smile and a wave, their job disappeared into her garage and out of their hair. When she was out of earshot, Sam asked out of the corner of his mouth, "How did you know there are only sixteen shopping days left until Christmas?"

"Caught it on the radio while you were sleeping. Who the hell names a radio station after a loon? As if people up here don't have enough of a reason to go crazy being snowed in six months out of the year?"

"It's a bird, Dean."

"I know it's a bird, but it could go the other way, too. I'm just saying . . . " He waited until it looked like she might be out of the driveway and heading down the street before going into the garage himself, Sam following close behind. They both checked around for anything that could be of use should need progress beyond what they had in the car then started toward their own vehicle to stock up. On the way, Dean nodded at the gigantic yellow bag just inside the garage's cubby door. "At least running out of rock salt is something we never have to worry about coming up this way."

"I'll remind you that you said that when you're spending another five bucks on your tenth trip through the car wash in less than a week."

Dean grumbled under his breath, his eyes immediately darting to his beloved's rims and doors. Oh, yeah. _That_'s why he hated Minnesota this time of year. It was no wonder Pastor Jim put his baby in storage every winter and drove that piece of shit Prelude around instead. He'd never get over that old lady who T-boned the pastor one winter and blamed him for the accident, saying that he shouldn't have been driving a white car in a Minnesota winter to begin with. She was just lucky that it hadn't been the Mustang. Any one of them might have hurt her over that one, collar or not. God, he missed Jim right then. It wasn't right to come so close and not be able to see him.

Sam stopped rummaging through the trunk contents when Dean didn't appear at his side. He listened for a moment, waiting for a hint of anything, then popped his head around to find his brother. Dean was standing there, still staring at the car, but looking like he was nowhere near. "Where are you?"

"Hmm?"

"You're definitely not here. Where were you?"

"Nowhere." With a snort at the cold winter air, Dean shrugged off the memory and returned to business. He came around the back side of his car and plucked away the shotgun shells Sam had in his hand, pocketing them with a grin. Sam rolled his eyes and retrieved four more, only to have Dean snatch those from him, too. Dean worked his jaw back and forth to keep from laughing at the look he was getting. He grabbed his shotgun and spun on his heel, hollering over his shoulder as he stepped through a snowbank, "Get a move on, Sam! Patrick Swayze isn't going to hunt himself!"

"Jerk."

Dean didn't parrot his usual response back right away. Instead he turned and walked backwards, grinning like an absolute fool at his brother's reddening face. It wasn't until he was stepping through the garage cubby door that he called back the requisite "Bitch".

When Sam finally came back through the garage, he did not look in the least bit happy. For a second, Dean thought his brother was still annoyed with him, but Sam curled his wrist around so that the EMF was right in front of his chest, glowing a fiery red. Glum but business-like, Sam said, "The readings go through the roof outside, too. So why didn't it pick up anything in the dining room when everywhere else is practically screaming that we should be looking for a contractor who didn't move the bodies when he moved the headstones?"

"Did you change the batteries?" asked Dean. On his brother's withering look, he said, "Hey, it wouldn't be the first time. Let's just start in the basement and work our way up. Maybe we'll find something along the way."

"You know that what we're looking for is probably in that attic, right?"

"Yeah, but I haven't figured out how we're going to get in there yet, so unless you have a better idea, Kreskin, I'm thinking we need to start in the basement to give us time for you cook something up. Right?"

Sam glowered at his brother while he tossed him the EMF. "All I'm saying is that we don't exactly have good luck with basements or anything generally underground these days."

"I thought you outgrew that whole afraid of the dark thing when you were six? Do you need me to hold your hand?"

"Shut up."

Dean shrugged a little _Suit Yourself_ sort of jerk then started off toward where the door that led to the basement stairway was at the back of the house. Sam followed close behind. They both checked their shotguns one last time before yanking the door open. Dean took the stairs first, hyper-alert. As much as he hated to admit it, creepy crawlies had a habit of grabbing for his brother's ankles from under the rickety old steps in these kinds of places. If Sam actually was a little nervous (but not scared, never scared) of underground spaces, he couldn't exactly hold it against the guy. He'd seen too many things in the dark and dank to actually like being there himself.

Other than learning that Andreea was really good at doing her laundry but not actually folding it or putting it away when it was done, there wasn't much of anything going on in the basement. There was a rusted old refrigerator where she had apparently bought out the pop supply of one of the local grocery stores. There were two chest freezers, a foosball table, and a space heater, but otherwise, there really wasn't much to see in the unfinished space. After each liberating a can of pop from the fridge, they headed back up the stairs toward the relative warmth of the ground floor.

The easiest way through the first level from where they were was to start with the pantry and work their way around. Other than discovering that Andreea was even more OCD about her cupboards than the guy in _Sleeping With the Enemy_, there really was nothing out of the ordinary there either. Taking the lead, Sam started into the kitchen but stopped short. He had to lean forward and grab on to the doorjamb as Dean stumbled right into him, throwing them both off balance. Before his brother could ask what was going on, Sam turned himself to the side so that they were both in the doorway. It didn't take long before Dean apparently saw what he did, too. Dean took the unopened can from his hand and set them both on the floor next to yet another of Andreea's little tables.

The heavy oak door was flung open, letting the winter air blow through the kitchen. Standing in front of the door with his back to them was an old man. Sam guessed he was probably in his late eighties, but he couldn't be sure. His jeans and flannel work shirt hid what looked to be a slight frame that was getting slighter by the day. A grease-stained baseball cap sat lightly on his head, half-cocked to the back. Whatever it was that he was doing, it seemed to have him rather tense. His shoulders shook with barely audible sobs.

Dean nicked his head to the side, telling Sam to circle around the kitchen table while he took the closer side. They both tiptoed their way into the bright room, only taking their eyes off the now flickering stranger in the doorway. Neither of them noticed the doorway they aligned themselves with the closer they got to the man.

He turned around slowly, clear blue eyes regarding them with a hint of amusement. Dean half-expected him to tell them that he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for them pesky kids. Instead, without warning, they were both gently picked up off their feet, flown through the air to the doorway, and deposited on the other side in the hallway. The eyes fixed on them were kind, even as the door was shut in their faces for daring to interrupt what was apparently a very private old man's moment.

After they both quickly looked each other up and down to be sure they were all right, Dean shrugged and placed a hand on the icy cold door. "At least he was nice about it this time."

"Yeah, but that's twice now that he's tried to teach you to fly. I don't think he's going to stay nice."

"Then the quicker we get up there, the better," said Dean, turning his brother by the shoulder and steering him toward the living room so that they could circle around to the main stairway. With shotguns once again raised, they made their way around, finding the path clear of old men and their radios. Inspired and not just a little antsy at the quiet in the house, Dean asked, "You think if we bring the radio with us, Phantom Denis will play DJ for us?" When Sam just gave him a look, Dean shrugged. "I'm just saying . . . It could be awfully dead up there."

Sam started up the staircase, talking over his shoulder as he went. "Why don't we worry about even getting to the door first? I don't think that old guy wants us anywhere near that attic. There's something he does _not_ want us to find."

"Mother Bates?"

"God, I hope not," laughed Sam. "So who do you think he is? Andreea pretty much gave us an entire Christmas party list to choose from here."

"Did she say how old the stock market guy was?"

"I don't think so," Sam said. "But she said a lot of things, and I barely caught half of it. I'm going to be up all night just trying to get some real research done, because right now, no one she talked about seems like a candidate. Then, even if we find the right guy, do you realize how much it's going to suck to have to dig this guy up in the middle of winter? If the river is frozen, then the ground sure as hell is going to be."

"Maybe we can hope for a nice heated mausoleum this once," Dean said, reaching the top of the stairs. He held his hand out in front of his brother almost out of reflex, demanding to be the one to go first. He knew the habit annoyed Sam, but twenty-four years of habit didn't exactly change themselves overnight. If it really bothered his brother that much, he could step out in front of him, but Sam never did. Neither of them was very good at relinquishing their assigned roles in the pecking order, which was okay with Dean. With his brother safely behind him then, he started down the hallway, stalking straight for the door to the attic stairs. Old Man Casper wasn't going to keep him from getting through that door this time . . . But maybe Young Man Casper could.

Huh?

Standing in front of the doorway was a flickering man who looked to be barely into his twenties. He wore an Army uniform that their dad would have called 'pinks and browns', one of the old uniforms that he recognized from old World War II movies. Casper cocked his head to the side, eyes blazing with determination. He opened his mouth, but the words seemed to come from all over as he said, "Leave us alone."

Sam took one step forward, not exactly intending to challenge the request, but it was taken as a disregard anyway. He found himself sailing through the hallway down to the very end and dropped heavily on the top step. He had to reach out and catch the newel post to keep from falling backwards down the staircase. When that apparently was not enough to keep Sam out of the way, the spirit turned his eyes to the side, sending the hunter roughly into the wall, but only hard enough to keep him from getting up too quickly. His heel caught in the pile of dirt that remained of Andreea's plant, tracking his progress down the hall and into the opposite wall.

"Let him go!" ordered Dean with a deceptive calm.

Again, the voice echoed off the walls, sounding much bigger than it was but matching Dean's tone almost perfectly. "This is my promise to keep, not yours to break. Please, leave."

The politeness in what was otherwise obviously an order surprised both brothers. The 'please' especially made Dean wish that they were somewhere else. They had never had a ghost come to them so politely, except maybe their mother, but she'd had a reason to be. Deciding to return the courtesy for Sam's safety, he said, "I wish I could, but I'm not going anywhere until you let my brother go."

Without further preamble, Sam thunked to the floor, grabbing at his sore shoulder.

"You have your brother. Now leave, please."

Dean made sure he looked the spirit in the eye as he said genuinely, "Sorry, Sir, but I need to get in there, and you can't keep me out forever." With that, he raised his weapon and fired the rock salt at the ghost, who looked entirely surprised himself at both the apology and the fact that anyone was aiming a gun at him at all. A mask slipped over Dean's face as he called into the now thin air, "I'll make it up to you later."

"Since when do you apologize to ghosts?" asked Sam. He eyed his brother, but Dean only shrugged and turned his attention to the floor to wait it out until Sam figured out the answer. He thought about Dean, wondering what the connection could possibly be until he thought about the ghost itself. There truly was a light in the younger brother's eyes that went off in time with the metaphoric light bulb popping the answer into his head. "The uniform. Dad always said that it didn't matter how much you hated the guy next to you: if he wore the uniform, you still gave him the respect until told otherwise."

Dean didn't answer, but jutted his chin toward the now open stairway. It was answer enough. "Let's see what he's been up to up there before he decides we both need wall-to-wall counseling."

The entire twenty steps to the top, both men kept their weapons cocked, just in case. Things remained quiet, even though there was a slight electric hum in the air. The attic itself looked like it had been the sole victim of a tornado. Boxes upon boxes were overturned. Papers were strewn about so that there was more paper than floor to be seen. Both of the bare light bulbs that hung from the ceiling were swaying back and forth in a draft that seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular. Still, no one or nothing tried to stop them from coming the rest of the way into the space, so they took it as a sign that they were at least somewhat allowed to move on.

After a quick sweep of the place, Dean took up residence in the north corner while Sam found a wall of filing cabinets and stacks of boxes that had not yet been overturned. Thinking that was a better place to start (if their spirit hadn't found what it was looking for in the overturned boxes, they probably wouldn't find anything there either), Sam pulled up a spot on the wall and got to work.

Starting with the shortest stack, Sam dusted off the top box. There was some writing on it, but he couldn't quite make it out; the ink was far too faded. He pulled the lid off, sending a puff of dust into his face. He sneezed the rest away to reveal a treasure trove of old photographs. He knew he probably shouldn't think of it that way; he was, after all, invading someone's personal space. But at the same time, he had never really had grandparents or a life with photo boxes and attics and keepsakes that stretched beyond his parents' wedding day. Anything else had somehow managed to go up in smoke with the rest of his father's life. To see the kinds of things other people kept was kind of interesting to him. Jessica had been a packrat. He'd liked that about her.

The people who this box belonged to were probably packrats, too. The top layer of pictures in this box was entirely pictures of people taken well before the turn of the century. They were still in hard charcoal folders, some in leather. No one smiled, afraid that the camera would steal their souls if they did. The dark sepia tones and water marks gave the young faces a look of impending doom that, to be honest, creeped him out a little. The scribblings on the photos without holders were barely legible, baring names that looked to be possibly German or Scandinavian of some kind. Beyond that, they were too old to be of any real help here, so he carefully packed everything back up and started his own pile of 'No'.

An overturned box next to the stack caught his attention next. Something about this one in particular told him that he might as well go through the boxes that had been rifled, too; there was no telling which boxes were going to help them out. They all had the same mountain of dust on them, so it didn't really matter where he started anyway. This one was bigger and helpfully labeled "_The Lucky Strikes, 1939–1942_".

The first picture on top was of a quartet of young kids around Sam's age, maybe even younger. There were two men in the middle; a dark haired man grinned brightly at the camera with his arm around a shorter blond man, his hand in a fist over the man's heart. The blond man's pose mirrored his taller counterpart's exactly. On each man's free arm were equally beautiful dark haired women who looked like they could step out and be old time movie stars. Together, they were the picture of everything that the history books liked to paint as the innocent, magical time before Pearl Harbor. They looked so happy, so young. He wondered if they knew that there was a war coming or going on when they'd posed for the camera. He flipped the picture over to find loopy letters proclaiming: _The Luckies, Our Last Night Together. Susan, Bob, Charlie, and Lillie. November 18, 1942._

He studied the picture a little longer, seeing the faces of people who now most undoubtedly knew there was a war going on. He committed the faces to memory then started into the box again. He found one of the two men, once again arm in arm, dressed in what Sam recognized even in black and white as the pinks and browns of the Army. The back of the picture told him that it was taken the morning after the group photo. Underneath that one was an entire layer of photos of a wedding party. After looking at the dates and faces, it turned out to be weddings for both couples, several weeks apart but dreadfully close to the November 18th date that they were last together. In both of the formal wedding portraits, the men were wearing their dress uniforms proudly, their brides smiling like they could take on the world.

Deeper into the box, Sam felt his heart clench a little. He knew he could never know their entire story, but the pictures were all he needed to know that these four people had loved each other very much. The two men had an ease about them that gave him the impression they might be brothers. They looked at their wives like they were truly in love in that old fashioned way that people didn't look at each other anymore. He knew that these guys opened doors and stood when their girls left the table; they loved their girls in that chaste way that people did when people today imagined a simpler time before terrorists and internet dating. They looked like they were in love the way he imagined his parents had been in love.

The next box Sam opened all but confirmed that guess. The box hadn't been labeled except to say "_1944_". Inside were dozens of envelopes tied together in stacks with dainty blue ribbon that looked like it hadn't been untied even once. The top envelope of each stack was addressed to "_Mrs. Charles E. Wallace_". Sam almost shut the lid on the box, but the possibility that there might be something important in those letters outweighed the gross feeling that he was invading the poor couple's privacy. He'd look over two or three, and if they didn't appear to say anything that could help them, he'd move on. At least that way would be respectful.

The first was dated for January of 1944. It was thin and scrawled in ink that was almost too faded to make out. It still smelled of tobacco and shoe polish.

_Dearest Lillie,_

_I woke up today knowing it was going to be a good day. When I got four letters from  
you today, I knew I was right. After I ended up doing fifty push-ups for each one, I wasn't  
feeling so lucky. I think our luck needs a little adjusting._

_I'm only kidding. Things aren't bad here at all. It's England. They speak English, sort of,_  
_and Bob is cleaning up at the poker tables for us. I think the laundry woman is going to_  
_have a crush on him here soon if he doesn't stop tipping her so well. His shorts have never_  
_been cleaner. Don't tell his mother._

_Mother says you haven't been by in months. Please go see her. I know it will be an entirely_  
_excruciating experience for you, and she will fill you so full of food that you will never want to_  
_eat ever again, but she is my mother. Life will be a lot easier if the two of you would at least_  
_try to get along. Do it for me? If it doesn't work out, I promise to not make you tell me_  
_where you hid the body. Deal?_

_Hey, say hi to your mother for me, would you?_

_Red made platoon sergeant today, so we're all going out for a beer. I'll write more tomorrow._

_Love you!_

The next letter — dated for April of 1944 — didn't offer any more help, but Sam couldn't help but enjoy reading it anyway. He liked this Charlie guy. He thought about the ghost guarding the door downstairs and felt a small freeze in his stomach. He wished he could read these letters and know that the guy had made it through the war to come home to his wife, but he was pretty sure that that wasn't to be. The casual nature of the soldier's words made him inexplicably sad.

_Darling Girl,_

_That's it. Someone needs to do something about the mail. Any more pushups today and I_  
_won't feel my arms for a month! Not your fault. I blame the APO. It is most definitely_  
_a government operation._

_I don't know when the casualty lists come up, but you should stop by Mrs. Harper's_  
_the next time you go to get your hair done. Tommy was shot down over Bremen last week._  
_His entire crew was lost. Thought you should know. You know she'll appreciate it._

_Laundry Lady definitely has a crush. She's offering to do more than Bobby's laundry. It_  
_would almost be funny just to see what Susan would do. You know our girl would never_  
_take that lying down or otherwise. We're going to have to find another way to get his_  
_clothes done._

_You know I'm not very good at writing these things, so I'll leave you like this tonight. I_  
_swear I'll get better. I will. I wish I had more to tell you. Things aren't all that exciting,_  
_which is exactly the way we wanted it, right? Everything is fine, Girl. Don't you worry_  
_about a thing._

_Love you!_

Sam wanted to stop reading, but he suddenly couldn't make himself stop. He started opening letter after letter, all from Charlie to Lillie, finding himself wondering what it would have been like to know these people. They reminded him so much of his life at Stanford, a life of Jess and friends and the promise of a world and life ahead of them. He remembered the moment he had realized the same about his own parents, that they had been kids once themselves, that they had had a life and future. Living a life off the grid now that everyone he loved but Dean was gone, he didn't think anyone would be thinking the same about him in sixty years. He didn't know why, exactly, but it made him sad even as he felt Charlie's hope for a safe return.

For his part, Dean was finding just as much to rifle through in his little corner. There were boxes upon boxes of old clothes that went back to what he guessed was really old because, let's face it, he was a guy, and guys weren't supposed to know that kind of thing. But if he did, he guessed some of it looked like stuff he'd seen on old Dick Van Dyke reruns on Nick-at-Nite in any number of random motel rooms over the years. Whoever these people were, they saved _every_thing.

Nothing really struck him as interesting, though, until he came to a military issue foot locker that was labeled with a nine digit number separated by hyphens — a social security number. Inside, he found what he would consider a treasure trove himself. Unlike his brother, he felt no guilt whatsoever at seeing it either. Well, maybe a little, but it was work, so he couldn't exactly leave it either. Under the lid of a box inside, certificates were stacked on top of one another, awarding Corporal Charles E. Wallace a Bronze Star for his participation and act of bravery in the Battle of the Bulge. There was another that was attached to a battle star. By the time he got through the stack, Dean found several battle stars, another Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart, all awarded to Charlie Wallace. The items were in their presentation boxes, ribbons still attached. His unit citation certificates were in there as well. It was all carefully placed in one box. Underneath it were two more boxes of the same size. To the right of the stack were carefully folded Class A uniform shirts and trousers, socks, and shoes. It all looked as crisp as he imagined it would have the man's last day in service. He remembered his father telling him once about his grandfather and how Grandpa Winchester had been very much the same way. He had still polished his shoes every day until the day he died. Charlie was starting to feel a little like that.

As much as he wanted to do nothing but admire the uniform for a while, he knew he was going to have to speed things up at least a little. Charlie — he was pretty sure now that their uniformed ghost was this guy Charlie — could come back at any time. The last thing he wanted to do was have the guy find him rummaging through his stuff. Sam had been thrown into enough walls lately.

He respectfully lifted the box of medals and citations out of the trunk, set it aside, then opened the next box. This one, like those his brother was going through, was filled with photographs. Most of them were of soldiers who he guessed were friends to Charlie. Most had names etched on the back, last names and sometimes first initials. There were a few nicknames. Some had dates underneath; some had locations. One picture in particular struck Dean: a row of five men, all smiling cockily at the camera. On the back of the picture were names, all with a line through them, and one date underneath. _June 6, 1944._ He flipped the picture back and forth a few times, looking at the date then the faces. Suddenly, they all looked so young. He didn't know how he knew, but he felt like he had already lived to be older than all of them.

Throughout the box were pictures of two guys who Dean came to know as Charlie and Bob. They were everywhere together. Formal and Battle uniforms. Shaven and Bearded. Green and Seen-Too-Much. They dated back to the first day of basic training. There was one of them in PTs after a run, both grinning like the devil-may-care fools that they probably were. He guessed they both probably puked as soon as the photographer was done. The one that struck him the most was one in front of a tent on which the back announced that it was taken "_June 5, 1944. The Lucky Strikes, For Luck_." Whatever the hell that meant. Still, he wondered what that had been like, knowing that they were about to go into something so incredibly huge like that. He wondered if they even knew that they were going into something huge. He had never had a chance to ask his grandfather those kinds of questions. He wondered what the man would have said, if given the chance.

He spent a good long while looking over the pictures but eventually forced himself to move on. These weren't his people to be curious about like that. He moved on to the next box underneath, finding dozens of envelopes laying lazily about without any real order to them at all. They were all addressed to Charlie in a frilly hand obviously belonging to a chick. The return address was "_Mrs. Charles E. Wallace_", so, yeah. He had no interest whatsoever in the love stuff that she had probably written to him. If Sam didn't find anything, he could maybe get his brother to do that dirty work. He sifted through the envelopes, just in case there was anything else to be found.

Something else was found.

Dean read through the yellowed and obviously well-read piece of paper a few times, both to absorb what it meant and to make sure that he was getting the name right. On the third or fourth read (he wasn't sure which), he let out a low whistle. "Damn."

"What?"

He handed the telegram over to Sam and waited. His brother's eyes skimmed the top then flew back up to meet his own. He widened his own in question, then watched as Sam bent back over the dangerously thin notice. He gave the kid a minute before asking, "You think maybe we have the wrong Wallace?"

Sam looked back up at him from the telegram thoughtfully. "But we saw him. He was right there. You shot him."

"Yeah, but we have that old guy downstairs, too. Do you really want to rule anyone out yet?" asked Dean. "Andreea said she heard crying. Either one of the guys could have been protecting her."

"From Andreea's radio?"

"Hell if I know. Maybe she's right: he doesn't like her taste in music. She's going to Hell like all those other crazy kids who listen to the devil music like Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. I know I got _my_ thrills on Blueberry Hill. I should go to Hell just for that, so you can imagine what he thinks of a band with a name like '_Barenaked Ladies_' or '_Pussycat Dolls_'."

The words came out of Dean's mouth so fast, like they used to, before 'Hell' was more than just a swear word that no one thinks of as a swear word anymore. It wasn't until he saw Sam's face flush bright red that he realized what he'd said and that it was too late to stop himself. He opened his mouth to say something else to fix it, but his rather colorful vocabulary didn't seem to want to help him out at the moment. He'd been trying so hard to keep the cavalier attitude packed away after his brother had asked him to, and had been relatively successful at it, but this was probably crossing that line again. Damn it. Things had been going so well lately, too. Eventually, he pursed his lips together tight in a grimace, shook his head, and muttered hatefully, "Sorry, Sam. I didn't mean — "

"Shut up," said Sam quietly. He swallowed hard, nodded his head like he was agreeing with a thought he was having, then untangled his long legs so that he could get up off the floor. He didn't look at his brother as he started toward the stairway. "I'll be back in a minute."

Dean watched Sam stalk off with his jaw half dragging on the floor. What the hell? He'd apologized. What more did the guy want? He waited, expecting his brother to come back right away. Sam had been doing that a lot lately; he'd start a fight, but he couldn't stand to let things be awkward for more than a few minutes. They really had been making an effort, almost to a fault. Things weren't any more normal than they had been before the whole Gordon Walker thing. Now they were just more open about it.

He gave his brother a few minutes, dipping back into the box next to him for a moment, but the frustrated silence got to him rather quickly. He dropped the telegram back into the box then shoved himself to his feet. He took his time going down the stairs, hallway, and more stairs, making sure to take heavy footsteps so that his arrival wouldn't be an entire surprise. The last thing he needed to do was sneak up on Sam when his kid brother was carrying a loaded weapon. He knew what rock salt to the chest felt like; there was no reason to relive that drama.

When he found Sam in the dining room, he was pacing back and forth, talking to himself to calm himself down. Man, the kid looked fit to be tied. He hated that he had put that there, made his brother look like that. But at the same time, this was something that he wasn't going to apologize for. He'd made every effort lately to do as Sam wanted, had gone out of his way to make sure that things were normal between them again. It wasn't fair: he wasn't doing it right before, but he wasn't doing it right _now_ either. He let his brother make a few more rounds before he quietly interrupted the raging one-sided argument so that he could say his piece.

"That wasn't fair, Sam."

Sam startled at his brother's voice, but he quickly recovered and barked, "How's that?"

"You can't ask me to be myself and then get mad when I am. I am trying to be normal here, Kiddo. I really am. But if you want normal, things like that are going to come out of my mouth. They did all the time before this. They did before Dad. And I'm not going to stop just because . . . It's not fair. That's all there is to it. You wanted me back to me, and you're getting it, but you can't flip it on and off like a switch, either. I'm either me or I'm not. Pick one and stick with it."

"It's a real place, Dean."

"Yeah, it is. Yeah, I'm on my way there, but damn it, Sam, I'm not going to spend the next six months censoring myself. That isn't me either, and you know it. It was a joke, nothing more."

"It doesn't feel like a joke anymore."

"Maybe not."

There was a long silence then. Dean continued to stand in the doorway, looking out of place. Sam started to pace again, but he kept his eyes on his brother this time. He waited for Dean to finish whatever was supposed to come after that 'maybe not' because he was so sure that there was supposed to be something after it, but nothing came. The patient look on Dean's face quickly started to drive him crazy so that he snapped, "What?"

"'_What_' what?"

"You obviously weren't done yet, so what were you going to say?"

Dean glanced up at the ceiling, hoping that his brother wouldn't see him begging the right words to come out of his mouth. Unfortunately, as always, the answer wasn't exactly written down for him on the cosmic cheat sheet that was the sky, ceiling, or general up above. Sam's big brown eyes were waiting for him when he brought his own back down, and they didn't look happy to be kept waiting. Rather than start anything else with a smart ass answer or an avoiding answer, Dean hooked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm going back upstairs to see what else I can find. If you want to come up and help me, you know where I'll be. If you want to be mad at me, that's fine, but at least do some work while you're doing it. The reconstructed rooms might have more junk in them that Andreea hasn't shown us yet."

"No, I'm coming," said Sam, although he sounded a little grudging about it. He was still mad, even though he didn't know exactly why — maybe because Dean was right about the whole double standard thing — but he also knew that it wasn't the best idea for them to be separated at this point. "Let's just forget about this, okay? I over-reacted, we're both acting like little girls, and I want out of this house as soon as possible. Back upstairs now, please?"

Recognizing the olive branch for what it was, Dean took it and smacked his brother over the head with it. "Now who is the one who's acting terrified?"

Sam gave his brother a hard look so that his meaning could not in any way be misinterpreted or missed. "I haven't stopped being terrified since the minute you woke me up, and I won't until we get us both through this." Before Dean could have the chance to say anything contradictory or otherwise, Sam kicked his foot behind him right into his brother's ass. "Come on. The research isn't going to do itself."

As he followed closely behind his brother, Dean clamped his teeth down hard to keep from saying anything that would set the guy off again. He really wanted to say that he appreciated the worry. He wanted to say he understood, especially after some of the conversations they'd had lately. He wanted to say that he still believed Sam would be okay when he was gone, even if he thought it was probably going to take a lot longer to get to _Okay_ than he'd previously thought. He wanted to say that he was in no way a girl, but Sam was right about himself. Most of all, he wanted to say something that Winchesters just didn't say out loud. They were men of action, not words. Being around all that lovey stuff upstairs was getting to his head. People in love were sick sometimes. Once in a while, he envied that. When it was making him want to _talk_ to his brother, he wanted that feeling to go away and fast.

They didn't say anything, but as they started their rummaging again, they both stole glances at the other to make sure that they were on the same page. It was obvious that they both had things to say, but neither was going to be the first to break this time. The deadlock was unbearable for both. Coupling that with research, Dean was about to lose his mind. He _hated_ research.

Half an hour of silence and rummaging later, Sam suddenly asked, "Are you hearing that?"

Dean looked up from his stack of papers and shrugged. "Hearing what?"

The sound floated up from downstairs, growing louder and louder. The already wintry cold attic took a frigid turn the closer the sound got. The same electric hum that they had felt before scorched the air around them. Then, from the corner, the radio that sat on top of one of the filing cabinets lit up and began to blare the same song from before at them with exorbitant cheer that contradicted everything else. "_Underneath the spreading chestnut tree, there he said he'd marry me. Now you oughta see our family, 'neath the spreading chestnut tree,_" the scratchy female voice blared. They both glanced at each other to make sure the other was trying to figure out the words, just in case, when the radio cut off with an abrupt click.

"I asked you nicely," echoed a voice, although there was no spirit to be seen.

"Sam, get out of here!" Dean ordered, already on his feet and hauling his brother up by the shoulder of his jacket as he ran for the stairs. For a good three or four steps, Sam was all arms and legs, but once he got his footing, Dean shoved his brother in front of him. Once he saw that Sam was close enough, Dean turned around, lifted the shotgun he'd left at the top of the stairs and started to fire in random directions to give them cover enough to get out.

The cover fire was apparently enough to make their spirit finally forget his manners. Debris lifted from the scattered contents of the floor, sailing through the air toward Dean's head as Sam managed to get down the stairs. He hollered up to his brother, who quickly fired off one more round then made his own way down the stairs. They started off down the hall together, each with a shotgun aimed in the opposite direction. Each set of opposing doors they passed, the doors slammed shut on them. They were almost to the end of the hallway when the figure of the old man appeared atop the stairway to block their exit.

"You are no longer welcome."

The brothers were blown apart by forces unseen in opposite directions. Dean was thrust back toward the attic stairway while Sam blew through the specter of the old man and down the stairs. Sam lost track of Dean then, landing agonizingly sprawled on his back at the foot of the stairway. He tried to get up, but he found himself sliding across the hard wood floors, dragging a rug with him as he went. He could hear his brother shouting for him, but with the wind knocked out of him he was unable to answer. His shoulder screamed at him as he was ripped through the first floor of the house to the front door, which opened for him and tossed him over the porch out into the snowbank.

Sam laid there for a moment, going through his mental checklist. He carefully moved each limb to make sure nothing was out of place besides his fiery shoulder. He still hadn't caught his breath, enough to actually scare him a bit, but it didn't matter. His breath was stolen from him again anyway as he heard a frightened gasp from the driveway.

Andreea's worried face appeared to hover over Sam as he tried to push himself up to his elbows. She reached down to help him up, not exactly minding his winces and gasps of injury. "Oh, my god! Sam! You guys told me you would be okay. That does not look like okay. It doesn't look anywhere _near_ okay. What are you doing out here? I realize that you guys probably aren't from around here, but you don't exactly look like you ride the short bus either. You can't tell me that you think going out in a Minnesota winter without a jacket is a good idea. This is how people get pneumonia, you know. I've had pneumonia. It isn't pretty. I didn't drag you guys up here so that you could die of pneumonia. You shouldn't be out here. Where's Dean?"

As if to answer her rapid fire questions, a crash from above the porch drew their attention to the second floor windows. Dean came pin-wheeling out, unable to control his fall enough to duck his head into the roll. His fingers clutched at the shingles, but the momentum kept him from even slowing himself down. As the spirit of the old man appeared in what remained of the shattered window, Dean was forced off the roof of the porch into the branches of the tree that guarded the house. He clung to the branches for dear life, only to have the tree itself seem to turn against him. He fell to the ground with a thud that no amount of snow could have cushioned.

When his brother didn't push himself up right away, a panic hit Sam that sent him fighting through his own pain. He scrambled to his feet, kicking snow dust out behind him as he slipped along the yard in his sneakers to his unmoving brother. When he reached him, he slowly rolled Dean over, eliciting a groan.

"You okay?"

Dean swiped his fore and middle fingers through the blood at his eyebrow, pulling a face with the sting. He showed his brother the blood. Sam raised his own eyebrows, asking his question again. Dean didn't say anything, but he held his arm up to ask for help onto his feet. Sam obliged and kept a steadying hand on his brother's elbow until Dean shrugged him off. They both looked up to the window, but there was no one or nothing there to be seen.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Andreea from behind them. "What happened? That really did not look healthy."

The brothers shared a look, assessing the damage to one another. Dean could tell Sam was about to ask the same thing, but with a slight shake of his head, he called his brother off until they could be alone. He reached up to the back of his head where he could feel a knot building already, his cheek ticking as his hand came away with more sticky stains. He glanced at the house one more time before turning around so that he could see them both.

"Just so you know? No one is staying in that house tonight." He shared a pointed glance with his brother, who nodded back his agreement. "I think all the bedrooms are otherwise occupied."

"There are that many?" asked Andreea.

"You've got enough ghosts in there to start a baseball team."

With wide eyes, Andreea looked truly frightened. She pulled her jacket tighter around her then clapped her mittens together. She nodded to herself as if she was accepting that all of this was really real. The woman then stepped in between the two men, took them both by the elbow, and walked them toward their car. Her voice shook along with the rest of her as she announced, "I'm buying dinner."

(End Part Two of Four)


	3. Chapter 3

**The Lucky Strikes**

_Part Three_

— **June 9, 1944 —**

Red-rimmed and puffy, Lillie wanted to claw her own eyes out. It would be easier.

Seeing Charlie standing there under their tree was killing her, slowly but surely. He looked so perfect to her, every inch of him the man she had pledged her life to. There was nothing about him that wasn't real. She heard him calling to her off and on throughout the night in his voice, the voice that had promised her a lifetime of love and happiness and honoring and treasuring and all of the things that she had promised right back. She wanted to answer that voice. She wanted to run out there and have him take her in his arms and reassure her that this was all going to be okay. The news was wrong, the casualty list was wrong, and all of this would be easily cleared up if he would only say so.

Of course, nothing was going to be okay ever again. She and Susan had agreed that they wouldn't trust the list until a letter actually came to them, but she knew. Charlie wasn't coming home to them like that. Susan wouldn't have looked at her like she was half crazy if she could see Charlie. Lillie hadn't mentioned it since.

Finally unable to take it any longer, Lillie wrapped a light blanket around herself, grabbed a pair of shoes, and walked downstairs. She waited until she was outside before she put the shoes on, afraid to wake Susan with the sounds of her feet on the steps or floor. Susie had been a ridiculously light sleeper since she'd taken up temporary residence in the living room. The last thing Lillie needed was to have her best friend awake and thinking she was nuts. The days has been hard enough.

She marched straight for their tree without hesitation, needing answers. Only her breath stopped when she saw Charlie turn around to wait for her. There was a sad look to his eyes that brought her breath right back to her.

"You promised me you'd come home," she said quietly.

"I am home," said Charlie with a strange echoing quality to his voice. "I came home to you as soon as I could."

"You promised me that we'd have a life together."

"And we will. Somehow, we will."

Lillie would have answered him, but Susan's voice called to her from the front porch. "Lillie? Honey, what are you doing out here?"

Charlie vanished from sight, leaving Lillie standing there under the tree alone and feeling like an idiot once again. She touched a hand to the trunk of the tree, feeling a power thrumming through it that she was sure only one of the four of them could feel. It was their tree. It was their promise. And now, it was a source of broken promises that she would give anything to find a way to remedy.

She walked back up to the front porch, allowing Susan to wrap her arms around her. Together they sat in the creaky wooden swing, rocking slowly back and forth. Tears soaked the blanket around Lillie's collar, although she wasn't sure which of them cried harder. They stayed there the rest of the night, watching the sun come up on another day that meant the first of a lifetime of days without one of their own.

When they got up to go back inside, Susan held Lillie's hand to keep her there for a moment. Her eyes, too, had stayed locked on their tree most of the night. She squeezed Lillie's hand, trying to share some of her hope with her best friend. Softly, she said, "If he could have kept that promise, he would have. He'll always be here with us, though. You know he'll always be with us. He'd never leave you alone in this world. Bob would kill him if he did."

"I never should have asked him to promise that."

Susan would never allow Lillie to take the blame for something like that, especially when all four of them had been a part of that promise. "He would have promised it anyway. He would have done it for me and Bob, and he sure as hell would have done it for you. This was his family. You wouldn't have been able to stop him from promising us anything."

"I'm through with promises."

Throwing a final glance at the tree, Susan growled at it, "Yeah. Me, too."

Out of the corner of her eye, she was sure she saw Charlie standing there, shaking his head in regret.

— **December 8, 2007 —**

Dinner with Andreea hadn't been too bad. She'd kept them reasonably entertained with stories about her college days until Dean saw that Sam was looking a little uncomfortable and changed the subject. She offered to take them down to the bars later that night if they were interested, but bed sounded like a better idea. Besides, neither of them wanted to imagine how fast she could talk if she had a few test tube shots in her. She seemed like she'd be an exuberant drunk.

After walking her to a door down the hall from their own at the hotel, they were both perfectly happy to lock their door behind them for the night. Other than the initial shock of being expelled from the woman's house, the only lingering effects on either of them were easily Tylenol-ed headaches and more strain on Sam's back.

Following two uninterrupted hours of research, Sam sank into the whirlpool and angled his shoulder directly on top of one of the jets to try to coax away some of the fire in it when he looked to where Dean had taken over, needing a little more noise and distraction. "Okay, so what I don't get is, if this Lillie woman is the one who died, why are we running into the two guys instead?"

"One guy." Dean picked up one of the photographs he'd pocketed (and would be sure to return when this was all over) and flipped his wrist around to show his brother, even though he was fairly sure that Sam couldn't see it from where he was. "I was thinking that, too, but the more I look at this picture, I think they're the same guy."

"Huh?"

"They had the same eyes. The one in the uniform is definitely the same guy from the pictures. I got a better look at them when they kicked us out, and I'm telling you, I think the old guy is him, too. You have to look for it, but he's there. I'm almost positive."

It wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility — nothing in their line of work seemed to be — but it wasn't something Sam had ever heard of happening either. "One guy, two spirits? How does that work?"

"I'm working on it."

"Well, it's not like we have another theory to go with at the moment. Okay, so same guy. That still doesn't explain her part in all of this."

"I don't think there is a _her_, at least, not that her. Maybe the wife of the guy who killed her then himself fits in somewhere, but not this Lillie chick." Before Sam could jump in with Dean's least favorite question in all the world — _why_ — he said, "The thing I don't get is, whichever one of them is the one spending all his time in the attic, he's looking for something. She died when he was gone, so he should know exactly where to find her. If it was about her, they'd have left that house a long time ago."

Sam closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. The only real answer that was coming to him at the moment was to just burn the whole place down and have Andreea start from scratch, but that was going to ruin her chance to have kitchen cabinetry that went all the way to the ceiling. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the water pool in the inside corners of his eyes. Frustrated, he said, "According to the property records, that's still four people who have died while owning the house. We need to narrow that list down. I am not digging up four graves in the middle of winter."

With a tired groan, he slipped completely under the water until he was bored with holding his breath. He had to force himself out of the water, toeing the jetspray off with a tinge of regret. Still, he didn't want to get too used to the damned near luxury treatment. They'd be back in a shithole without electricity soon enough.

When he came back out of the bathroom dressed and ready for at least a few more hours of work, he found Dean still staring at the picture in his hand. "What are you thinking?"

"I think it would be really nice if we could find out what happened to Lillie, but I don't think either Chuck is going to be letting us back in that house any time soon to ask him or pillage his attic again."

"We may not need to get in the house."

"What are you going to do: read their letters with your x-ray vision from the front yard?"

Sam pointed to the man on the left, the taller of the two. "This guy? Bob? He's still alive. So is his wife, this one here. They live on the other side of town in the same house they've had since he came back from the war." He caught Dean's surprised look out of the corner of his eye and continued to explain, "When you were in the shower I found a write-up in the paper for their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary three weeks ago. It was in there."

"So what do you want to do?"

Sam scratched at his eyebrow thoughtfully until he came up with the answer that he had wanted to avoid. "I think we need to spend tomorrow badgering an old man."

"Just remember that you're the one who said 'badger' and not me."

The next morning, they found the house easily enough, only to find a note taped to the inside of the screen door telling anyone and everyone who looked that she was off shopping and he had gone down the block to Buck's. Neither of them said anything, but both raised their eyebrows with surprised amusement. Neither of them could remember a life without locks on everything. Oh, to live in a town that safe and be able to enjoy it . . .

A look either way down the street quickly told them that Buck's was a barbershop at the end of the block that looked like it hadn't seen a paint brush since the late seventies. They took the walk down at a casual lope, looking up and down the street at all of the old Forties houses that would soon be considered too small for people their own age who had the luxuries of families and houses. It made them both a little sad. People didn't know how lucky they had it.

The barbershop turned out to be a one room chat box with a thirty-year-old television, mini-fridge, and walls decorated floor to ceiling with Twins baseball memorabilia. Along one wall was an old wooden bench filled with old men who still smelled of the same shoe polish and cologne they had worn since they had been Dean and Sam's age. Only two barber chairs sat in front of the mirror, one obviously intended for toddler boys with an ancient-looking horse head. The adult chair was late 1970s green leather that had seen better days, much like the man sitting in it.

Everyone in the joint looked up at the sound of unfamiliar footsteps crossing the threshold of what was otherwise the inner sanctum of male gossip and gentlemanly camaraderie of this very small neighborhood. Sam glanced over his shoulder at Dean, who offered the patrons a jut of the chin in greeting. A few eyes narrowed in suspicion, but within seconds all eyes returned to their newspapers and dirty fingernails with only a skeptical glance here and there.

Sam looked at all the men, studying their faces until he found the one that would most likely be Bob Beckett hiding under sixty years of life and wrinkles. After an easy smile, he asked the man in the barber chair, "Mr. Beckett?"

"Who's asking?"

"I'm Sam; this is my brother, Dean. We're Charlie Wallace's great-nephews. We were kind of hoping you could talk to us for a minute?"

Behind his glasses, Bob Beckett's fading brown eyes narrowed to nearly closed as if a pinhole effect would help him to better size up the two men in front of him. Apparently not satisfied with only a cursory glance, he called them over. "Come on over here so's I can have a look at you."

Obediently the brothers stood for inspection like they had most days of their young lives, hands straight down at their sides in loose fists, backs and shoulders at attention, eyes front. No one said anything, but they could feel the eyes of the other patrons watching the scene with more than mild interest. Dean couldn't quite get over the feeling that they had just been busted back down to privates.

Through one wide and one droopy eye, Bob asked, "You're Charlie's nephews, you say?"

"Yes, Sir," nodded both brothers clearly.

An indecipherable smile creased the man's face where dimples might once have been. "You boys take a seat." With that, all eyes again returned to minding their own business while Bob re-engaged the barber in conversation. "So how is that granddaughter of yours, Buck?"

Half an hour of slow conversation about grandchildren, the weather, and the lousy deer season later, Bob motioned for the Winchesters to follow him back out into the cold. He pulled a baseball cap down over his wet hear, tugged up the zipper of his Carhartt jacket, and clapped his hands together. He was ready for a walk. Another inspecting glance up and down the men told him that they weren't. Gesturing at their lack of proper winter clothing, he asked, "You boys aren't from around these parts, are you?"

"No, Sir," answered Sam.

"Tough," said Bob with a lilt in his smile. He glanced down the street toward his house and saw the car parked in front of it. "That yours? She's beautiful."

Dean's pride was unmistakable. He'd never get tired of hearing about his baby. He glanced sideways to see if Sam was rolling his eyes, but the kid had the decency to appreciate the comment for once. He knew Sam didn't always agree with his attachment to the car, but his brother respected it (most of the time). Dean grinned and boasted, "She's better than home."

"I'm sure she is." Bob stopped them in the three car parking space, turned, and faced them. "So what brings you to me?"

Sam produced the group photo Dean had procured as well as the one labeled before D-Day. He put on his best 'respect your elders' voice and said, "We were asking around about Charlie and stopped by the house. A bunch of his stuff was still in the attic, so the new owner let us in. We found these. When we found out who you were, we hoped you could tell us more about him. You looked like you were pretty tight."

"We were." Bob took the pictures from Sam and smiled. "I'm surprised you were able to get into that attic. My Susan and I finally gave up when we couldn't even unscrew the door from the hinges to get in."

Dean shrugged casually. "We have our methods."

Neither man could shake the feeling of being sized up again as the old man said, "I'll just bet you do." Still, his smile was pleasant as he crooked his head to the side to tell them to follow him. "And you're looking to hear about Charlie how?"

"Anything you can tell us would be helpful," said Sam. "There's so much that we don't know."

A salt-covered truck drove past them, the driver waving at Bob along the way. He waved back, all the while muttering under his breath about what a lousy sonofabitch the driver was with a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face. Sam immediately liked the man just for that. Dean had liked him on sight.

Bob handed the photographs back to Sam and asked, "Is there a reason that you chose those particular pictures?"

A strange flash of a memory hit Dean, his mind conjuring up pictures of the only time Pastor Jim had ever talked to him about his experience during Vietnam. It was the only time he'd ever seen his surrogate uncle look truly haunted by something other than a spirit. He immediately put his apologies into his voice as he told the old man, "If that's a bad time for you to talk about, Sir, we'd understand."

"If you were my girls, I would say so, yes," said Bob. He gave the brothers one last appraising glance before he said, "Let's take a walk."

Bob led them down the block at a carefree, screw-the-clock pace. He enjoyed his walks. At his age, he could afford to enjoy a walk on a Saturday. One of his most prized possessions was a photograph taken of himself walking down this sidewalk with his first great-grandson, hand in hand, as they walked away from the boy's mother. It showed only their backs, but it was priceless. He looked at these two boys flanking slightly behind him and wondered when they were going to finally slow down and enjoy a walk themselves.

Instead of heading toward his home, he started them down the hill, intending to take them around the block. By the time they reached his house coming around, that should be enough time to tell them what they wanted to know and end it there. He would awake from nightmares in his recliner as it was.

He cleared his throat of stale coffee and memories before he said, "The picture you found was of the two of us taken the day before D-Day. A lot of guys were taking pictures that day. We knew that it would be the last time we got to see a lot of the faces we had been around for so long. Charlie said it was bad luck, but he was such a superstitious sucker that I wasn't paying him any nevermind. Looking back at it, maybe I should have listened to him."

The man waited for the inevitable interruption, the prompting that came with the impatience of youth. He even stopped walking for a moment when neither of the boys tried to push him onward. He glanced between them only to find them both looking at him with enthralled expressions that none of his daughters' husbands ever had the courtesy to give him when he talked about those days. He cocked his head, trying to figure them out.

It took a moment, but finally Dean asked, "Sir? Are you all right?"

"I might be dying from shock," Bob said cheerfully enough. At the mirrored confused looks he received, he added, "You boys brought manners."

The corner of Dean's mouth quirked up. "Were we supposed to leave them at home?"

"No, but when we're done here, if you wouldn't mind leaving them with my ungrateful grandson on your way out, it would be much appreciated."

Sam chuckled. "We'll see what we can do about that, Sir."

With a large circular wave of his hand, Bob moved them forward. "They'd be wasted on that kid anyway. At least his mother raised his brother right. One talks too much, one doesn't say a word, and the other really should have believed me when I told him that children are to be seen and not heard, even if I don't mean it. Eh, one out of three ain't bad when it comes to those kids. You'll understand that when you have grandkids. You can only do so much and leave the rest to hope you taught your own to be good people. Their mother, she's good people. You boys came from good people, I can tell. You keep those manners; they probably look better on you. So, where were we? The day before, yes?"

"Yes, Sir," the brothers said together with twin nods.

"Well, then . . . " A far off look came over Bob as he stepped over the overgrown weeds in the cracks of the sidewalks. His shoes sounded heavy, the kind of shoes that they just didn't make anymore. When his generation died out, there would be no more need for shoes that needed daily polishing anymore. Many things would die out with his generation — their memories being the only real loss. Caught up in his reverie, Bob said appraisingly, "I don't need to tell you boys that what we saw those first days was Hell on Earth, do I? You have the look about you, like you would understand. Maybe not so much in real detail since the world hasn't seen anything like that since, but you still know. I saw that look enough to know. Charlie and me, we were some of the first to make it to the beach. The water was already coming to the shore red, but it was so damned loud that you didn't have time to notice how things looked. Looking was just a dumb move. It's what got me into trouble, though, too. I wasn't looking. I wasn't keeping an eye on Charlie like I'd promised. I was too scared, you see. I don't care how many documentaries you watch. Any of those guys who say they weren't scared that day are full of shit. There isn't a single guy who set foot on that sand that wasn't scared out of his mind. Anyway, by the time I did remember to look for Charlie, it was too late. I dragged him as far as I could, but there really wasn't anywhere that wasn't a death trap. I . . . I'm not sure how long I stayed with him after he died, but at some point, somebody pulled me off him and put me back in it. I spent the next six days thinking that the only brother I had in this world was dead."

Both Dean and Sam resisted the urge to ask "_But he wasn't_", instead allowing the man his time to process how he wanted to them his story. He had given them an in by complimenting their ability to listen, so they were going to use it to their advantage as long as they could.

"You'd better believe that there was no one more surprised than me when I was told that he was alive. If I hadn't seen him with my own two eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. It was a fucking miracle. I'm not a religious man, but I sure as damn was that day. He didn't remember how he got out or anything, but I guess I didn't really ask too many questions. I was just happy to have him back. We've been best friends since we were four years old. Other than my wife and his, he was the only family I had. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. We were a lot luckier than some of the bastards we'd come up with over the last few months. When that kind of luck comes your way, you don't question it. You get down on your knees and pucker up until your lips chap, is what you do."

Having reached the bottom of the hill, they turned the corner to start the next portion of the block. Bob took the opportunity to stop, take off his glasses, and clean them with the handkerchief he always kept here. He unashamedly used the white cloth to dab at his eyes as well. They weren't leaking yet, but if he didn't do something about it, they would be. To his relief, his audience didn't say anything or offer to be of some sort of comfort. He really did like these boys. They had an understanding. They really did.

Bob collected himself then started his long march through Memory Lane again, grateful for the eager company at his sides. Even after sixty years, some of these day trips to Hell were better survived if he didn't have to do them alone. Part of him would always be angry at Charlie for leaving him to do them alone. But that was getting ahead of his story, now, wasn't it?

"Things went back to normal after that. We ate, we slept, we did our best to survive. He was the same old Charlie, so I didn't worry about it. We never told our wives even. Guys were scattered all over, misplaced in those first days. There was no need to scare the girls. It was all SNAFU, you know. It was . . . We thought that was our glitch and we were going to make it home fine from there on out. The, uh, the news about Lillie came three days after we marched into the Ardennes. Swell Christmas gift, huh? '_Sorry your wife is dead. Here, go into the woods without winter gear or ammo. Enjoy!_' Uncle Sam sends terribly heartfelt telegram, let me tell you. Charlie changed after that. Everybody around us thought it was just what we went through that Christmas — if you want to know what Hell would be like, I can tell you that that was it — but I knew. I knew it had nothing to do with that. If you had known Lillie, he . . . There is no way he could ever be the same without her. Half of him was gone. He used to be a real card, always had a smile for everybody. You couldn't shut the guy up. He was the guy you could usually find literally swinging from the rafters. Dear Lord, did we raise Hell when we were kids . . . After Lillie, though, he was never the same. He got real quiet. He still smiled, but it wasn't like it was before. He started taking chances and dodging bullets like he was Superman or something. I could have sworn he had the Devil himself in him the way he was acting. Oh, but he was angry. So angry. It took me a while, but I finally figured that part out. The only time he ever admitted it to me — I'll never forget it — he said that he would never forgive himself. All the time he spent promising her that he was going to come home to her, he never once thought to make _her_ promise to be there when he got back."

The man pulled his handkerchief out again, dabbing at his eyes under the threat of his eyelashes freezing in the cold. He didn't look up at his avid listeners, but he could feel them looking away to give him his privacy. When he felt settled again, he put the cloth away with a look upward thanking his god that some people still knew how to raise their children right.

Bob cleared his throat and started his tale again, although his voice was starting to sound tired. "After that, Charlie put everything he had into Susan and me. I used to try to get him to have a life of his own again, but he didn't want it. Lillie was his one and only. At first, I thought it was going to be okay. One night when we were sitting somewhere in Poland, he asked me — I'll never forget it — he asked me if I loved him. He was my brother, as far as I was concerned, so of course I did. He said, _'And there's nothing too good for my brother. You're getting home to your wife for the both of us, and you will never have anything to regret_'. Then he walked away. We never talked about it again, but I knew then that he wasn't going to be the same."

Offering sixty-year-old sympathies, Sam said, "It must have been hard to come home to a piece of you all missing."

"It was," agreed Bob. "My Susie, she was a mess there for a long time. We tried to keep Charlie as busy as we could, though. I never liked him being in that house all by his lonesome, but he always said that he felt like Lillie was somehow still there with him. He used to stand there in the doorway for hours, just watching the yard like he expected her to come up the walk any minute. Hell, the day he died, he was still waiting for her to come for him."

It caught Dean completely off-guard when Sam admitted, "I understand."

The old man turned to face him, eyed him carefully, and said, "You look like maybe you do."

Sam knew he had to tread carefully, especially since he'd seen the way his brother's ears had perked at the admission. He made sure not to look at Dean as he said, "I had a Lillie once. The truth is, if I were still at home, I'd probably be the same way. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think I'm going to see Jessica walk through the door. Most days, I wonder if maybe she's waiting for me. I want it so badly that I can almost taste it."

"Charlie said the same thing," said Bob. "Every day of his life, he loved Lillie. I know that she was the first thing he was expecting to see when he went so that they could go off into the sunset together."

"Yeah," said Sam quietly.

There was a small silence before Bob cleared his throat and said, "Well, boys, you both look like you're about to be popsicles here soon if you don't get yourselves home."

It was clearly a dismissal; they had gotten all they were going to get out of the man and his memories. They both stretched their hands out to him to shake their thanks. Dean vocalized them for both of them. "Thanks for your time, Sir. It was nice to hear about Charlie from someone who knew him."

"You're welcome." Bob started away from him and made it a good ten steps away from the brothers before turning toward them thoughtfully. "If Charlie is still in that house, it's because Lillie wasn't there to meet him like she should have been. He's waiting for her . . . ," he said with an odd look, as if he knew what they had been asking all along. "My brother always was a stubborn one. I'll be damned if he isn't waiting for her. And so is my Susie. She'll be wanting to tell me to take my pills. You get old, you take pills. Remember that. You boys take care now."

Before he could get too far away, Sam turned on his most sincere expression and called out to the man, "Sir? Would it be okay if we came by tomorrow and spoke with your wife about what happened here at home? It would be nice to know more about Lillie. She would have been our aunt, after all."

"The game kicks off at noon. She won't mind being distracted by you. She'll put you to work in the kitchen, but she'll talk your ear off, if you let her."

"Thank you for your time, Sir," said Dean. "We'll see you both tomorrow."

With a nod, the old man shoved his hands in his pockets and turned back around, walking toward home like a man with the weight of more than just eighty-some years on his shoulders. Both brothers couldn't help but feel like they were putting some of it there and spent the car ride back to the motel a little more quiet and thoughtful than usual.

Things didn't get much more chatty over the rest of the day either. Sam fell into a contemplative silence after that. Even when they met with Andreea for dinner to update her on the slow goings on, he had been letting her and Dean do most of the talking. He wasn't rude by any means, but he was definitely quiet. Dean tried not to worry about it since pensive didn't necessarily mean trouble, but he told himself that if it didn't clear up relatively soon, he was going to do something about it.

They decided to pull a half-assed stake out in front of Andreea's house to see if anything had come up since their eviction. It wasn't entirely surprising that lights were on all throughout the house, including Andreea's Christmas tree. The lights flickered intermittently in the bedroom while they watched. The attic lights came on for a while, went out, then came back on while they watched. Dean got out and tried the doorknobs, only to receive angry shocks to his hands. When Sam tried half an hour later, he was blown back half way across the yard into a cushy snowbank. Whatever it was about that house, it really did not want them there.

Dean's time limit of 'relatively soon' turned out to be a lot sooner than he normally would have let something go. Sam wasn't exactly brooding like he was prone to doing, but Dean didn't want to let things fester. His brother was the King of Fester these days. It was weird to be the one doing the pushing, but sometimes it was necessary when it came to living with Sam to prevent out of proportion explosions later on like the one from the day before. Prevention was the key to a happy existence when it came to his brother. Of course, Sam would probably say the same about him.

He put a smile on his face in an attempt to keep the question light as he reached over and punched Sam's knee with his fist. "Ground Control to Major Tom: Come in, Major Tom."

"I'm here," Sam said without taking his eyes off the house.

"What are you thinking about?" When Sam just shook his head to blow him off, Dean turned the volume down on the car radio. "Seriously. You're quiet. What's the deal?"

"Just thinking."

"About?"

"Nothing."

"If you're thinking about nothing, how do you know when you're done?" Again, he got a look, only this time he thought it was more like Sam was trying to shake his thoughts out of his head so that he could put an end to the conversation before it could start. Knowing Sam, he was thinking that if there were no thoughts to talk about, he wouldn't have to talk. Like that actually worked. And since when was Sam the one who didn't want to do the touchy-feely man talk anyway? That was supposed to be his gig; little brother was supposed to stay a relatively open book for him. This was simply unacceptable. "Sam?"

Sam turned in his seat to face his brother, although he kept his eyes on the front door of their job's house. His expression was casual enough, not the broody frown that had long accompanied his thoughts whenever the topic of Jessica had come up. It actually surprised him a little that he had been able to talk about her that afternoon the way he had, so openly without it making him either cold or angry. He had been thinking about that almost as much as he had been thinking about her herself. It struck him that the brood wasn't there anymore. All that was left was Jessica. It was an odd place for him to be after so long. He wondered if Charlie had ever hit that point, too.

"You're obviously thinking something. Out with it."

"I just . . . I'm okay. You don't have to look at me like that. It's really not a big deal. Some stuff Bob said today kind of stuck and got me thinking about other stuff. I don't know. It's nothing." He stole a glance at Dean, who was waiting patiently for him to finally come out with whatever it was. It was true; what he was thinking about wasn't something that required talking about. It was just something stuck there that he hadn't thought on in a long time. Talking to Bob had brought it back to the forefront. Dean wasn't looking away, though, so Sam shrugged and asked, "Did I ever tell you that I called Pastor Jim after Jess died?

"No." Dean's entire expression perked up, both surprised and curious. They hadn't talked about Pastor Jim since they'd given him and the rest of their cobbled family a proper whiskey send off a year ago. "I had no idea."

"Yeah. After that plane job and Jerry told us about Dad's voicemail. I was so mad at Dad for not calling us back and telling us that he was at least alive. I've been mad at him a lot over the years, but after everything that had been going on since you came to get me, I was madder than I think I'd ever been. We'd been on the road for almost two months before he let us know that he was even _alive_. I knew you were too relieved to be mad at him, and I was relieved, too, yeah, but I was so fucking _mad_. Then that demon on the plane knew about Jess and I . . . This is going to sound funny, but I needed to talk to an adult, you know? You're my brother, and yeah, you usually have the answers, but I needed you to be my brother, not my answer bank. I don't know how else to explain it; I needed a grown up. I needed to talk to Jim. He always knew how to make some things make sense, you know?"

"Things like Dad?"

His eyes suddenly finding lights in the house more interesting than they should be, Sam nodded guiltily. He had unloaded on their friend more times than he could count about the family turmoil that John always seemed to be the center of over the years. "I couldn't always put you in the middle. I knew better. I know you both think I didn't, but I did. I wasn't exactly a genius in those days — I know that _now_ — but I wasn't so blind that I couldn't see how much it sucked to be between us all the time either. Jim, he kept it from being even worse. He knew the right thing to say, and he knew how to put me in my place without ever yelling at me, you know?"

"So what does he have to do with you going all quiet over there now?"

"Something he said that night just kind of . . . I don't know. Do you ever wonder what Mom and Dad were like before us? I never knew Dad before everything happened to us. You at least knew that part of him, but neither one of us could have known what they were like before getting married. They must have had plans about who they wanted to be before they had each other. Even after they were together, we couldn't have been the only plans they had. Did Mom want to go to work after we were old enough to go to school? What did she want to be? Did they want any more kids? Jim, he . . . He always tried to get me to cut Dad some slack without telling me that I was being a colossal teenage terror, you know? Not once did he talk to me like I wasn't capable of understanding what he wanted to tell me, which was sort of his way of telling me that I would understand eventually. And when I didn't want to understand, he tried to remind me that Dad wasn't always the guy we knew, that he never would have been like he was if it hadn't been for what happened to Mom."

"And that he wouldn't have been the guy we knew if he hadn't loved Mom like he did," Dean finished with a smile. When Sam blinked at him, he shrugged. "You think you're the only one Jim tried to tell that to? Dad didn't always think I was a treat to deal with either."

"Yeah, but I apparently needed it more than you did. Pastor Jim, he . . . He was right. I hated it sometimes, but he was right — especially that night." Sam ducked his head, hiding behind his too-long hair, even though he was pretty sure it was a habit Dean would like to cure him of. "After some of the stuff he said, I stopped needing to find Dad to tell me how to deal with Jess. I needed to find him just to find him after that."

Dean bit the inside of his cheek to keep the grin at bay. It was good to hear Sam admit that. It was comforting to know that his brother wasn't forgiving their father just because he'd died, that he really meant the forgiveness as a son instead. He'd waited a long time for that to happen. Still, as happy as that made him, it still didn't answer his question. "And you're thinking about this now, why?"

"I don't know. It's Bob, mostly, and hearing him talk about Charlie and their wives. I keep seeing that picture of the four of them looking like they were ready to take on the world. They were my age, Dean. They had their whole lives ahead of them. I look at them and it's all I can do not to think about Jess or Mom and Dad. Jess and I, we had our whole lives planned out ahead of us, too. I guess I just . . . Thirty doesn't sound so old to me anymore, you know? If anything, it sounds too damned young."

Having had a fairly similar thought of his own lately, all Dean could say was "Yeah".

"Those pictures, all of them together and happy? That was going to be us," Sam said quietly, finally getting the point. He knew what he was about to say was a big risk, at least for him, but it was one that he wanted to take. There were a lot of things he wanted his brother to know right now, before he wouldn't have the chance to tell him, because soon Dean would be saved and they weren't going to have The End looming over their heads enough to make them want to talk anymore. (That was his story and he was sticking to it, even if Dean didn't want to have hope like he did.) "I had it all planned out. I hadn't told Jess yet, but I was going to call you after graduation and see if you could take the summer off before I started up with law school in the fall. I wanted you to have time to get to know Jess and her to know you and Dad. I thought that, if I could just show you both that I could do it, that I could graduate and be an adult, that it would be okay with you. We were going to have stupid pictures like that, Dad and I were going to talk and be okay, and you and I were . . . We were going to find a way to be okay with each other. And that time, when you and Dad went back on the road after it all, everything was going to be forgiven. We were all going to say that it had been long enough and before we were — you . . ." For this, Sam looked his brother dead straight in the eye. "You weren't the only one who wanted his family back, you know?"

Dean wasn't sure what to say. It had been so long since they had talked about any of this stuff, about Stanford, Dad, Jessica, any of it. The scary thing was, it felt just as raw as it did then. He knew he could go either way. He could ask then why, if perfect pictures had been the plan, Sam had sounded so angry when he'd shown up in their apartment that night, but he wasn't sure he wanted that answer. He could ask why it had to be _after_ graduation, but that didn't feel safe either. Instead, the best thing he could do was try to tell Sam that he wanted the same thing. Maybe that would be enough. "That would have been a nice picture."

"I think so, too."

The smile that came to Sam's face at that moment was more than enough reward for Dean.

There would have been a nice, companionable silence about the moment had they been anywhere but sitting right outside their job's haunted house. Dean had been concentrating all of his attention on Sam, but the younger brother had been easily dividing his attention between his brother and the house. He had been waiting for the right time to call attention back to their job. He nodded toward the tree in the front yard. Under the circle of light from the front porch stood the ghost of Charlie Wallace in uniform, watching them right back as they had watched for him.

"Somehow, I'm not sure he thinks so," said Sam with a shiver.

Charlie Wallace's young voice came over the radio to them, even though his ghost's lips never moved. "It's my promise to keep."

With that, the radio snapped to full volume again to the same song that they had heard up in Andreea's bedroom and in the attic the day before. The engine of the car started of its own volition. The steering wheel directed the tires away from the curb without Dean ever touching the wheel. Both brothers looked back over the seat to see Charlie standing at the edge of the yard, staring at them with the same piercing blue eyes that had promised them danger before. It wasn't until the car reached the end of the block that Charlie gave up control of the vehicle. The engine idled patiently until Dean took over and got them the hell out until he could figure out what they were going to do next.

As soon as the Winchesters were out of sight, all of the lights in the Wallace household went dark.

There wasn't much research left to be done that didn't involve human contact (other than finding that Susan had put up pictures of both Bob and Charlie in the national World War II memorial website), so they settled in for the night. Dean gave the car a quick once over to make sure Charlie hadn't screwed it over too badly, but everything seemed to be in order. He really hated it when spooks tried to drive his baby. By the time he came back in, Sam was sleeping peacefully in his bed, hopefully dreaming of family pictures and forgiveness. Dean knew that was what he was going to make an effort to dream about himself.

Early the next afternoon, as promised, Susan Beckett put them to work in her kitchen less than ten minutes after their arrival. They got plenty of coffee and cookies out of the deal, but it was still work. The kitchen was ridiculously warm with too much baking for the Lutheran Ladies church group Christmas baskets, but it was still a comforting warmth that neither of them had had a whole lot of experience with. Dean couldn't help but wonder if this was what it would have been like with their mother if she'd been allowed to live to see grandchildren. Sam couldn't help but wonder if this was what it would have been like if Jessica had been allowed to live for them to see grandchildren. This was what they had always been told was what grandmothers did. It was warm.

When Susan had Sam standing over a boiling pot of what she had explained was going to be hard candy, she sat down on a stool, toweled her eyes dry, then said, "So Bob tells me you boys are asking about Lillie Wallace? What makes you ask about her after all these years?"

"We're just trying to find out what happened to her," said Sam, stirring carefully and monitoring the thermometer as instructed. "We didn't get to know Charlie much so we're trying to learn whatever we can about him and her. No one ever really told us much."

She glanced between the brothers carefully, sizing them up and nodding to herself. "My Bob says you seem like good boys, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt too much. What do you want to know?"

Taking it as a sign that things were going to be relatively open to them, Dean asked, "After Bob and Charlie left, did you notice anything unusual with her?"

"Before or after a perfectly healthy twenty-three year old woman dropped dead in the middle of nowhere of apparently nothing more than a broken heart?"

Dean coughed to cover a laugh. He liked this woman. She reminded him a lot of Pastor Jim's secretary. Kay used to talk to them like that, too. She'd raise that eyebrow and look at him like he must have lost his mind for walking into a loaded trap question like that one, but she was always good-natured about it. Susan seemed to think it was pretty funny, too. He shook his head, taking the reminiscent smile with it, and asked, "Why don't we start with before and you can work us up to the rest of it?"

"Sure, in a minute," the woman said in that tone that warned of work ahead. She poked her head out the back entry way then returned to set Dean to the task of breaking some hardened slabs of candy into pieces with the handle of a butter knife while she had Sam pouring more out. Once they had the operation up and running, she sat back on her stool, took off her glasses, and looked between them. "The thing you need to know about Lillie is that, really, the idea of her dying from a broken heart wasn't such a crazy thing at all. She was one of the bravest people I've ever known, but she was also one of the most lonely people I've ever seen. She could be lonely in a room crowded with people who would call her 'friend'. If she was with one of the three of us, it was one thing. We had made our own family together. But to anyone who wasn't us, she couldn't bring her eyes up from the floor."

As with Bob, the brothers were careful to let Susan talk, being respectful of both her and her story. They exchanged a look at the word 'lonely' since that was always a warning sign for them when it came to the restlessly spirited set, but the alarm bells weren't ringing full yet.

Susan must have seen the look and interpreted the 'why' behind it because she said, "She wasn't an unhappy person. I think there's a difference between lonely and unhappy. There were times when I've seen her so happy you'd think she was going to bust out in song right there. She was handling all of it very well. We went out whenever we could, drank too much if you asked our mothers, and made a life for ourselves without our men. We knew they were going to come home to us as soon as they could. There was never a doubt in either of our minds that they were coming home. Until D-Day, we didn't think it was even a possibility."

Dean glanced at Sam again, losing his concentration and winding up with a sliver of cinnamon candy breaking through the skin of his fingers. He hissed and shook the sting out, only to have Susan get up from her stool, take him by the hand, and use her manicured nails to pull at it. As she dug around like a set of rusty tweezers, he caught Sam's same question over her shoulder. Hadn't Bob told them that they had never told their wives about D-Day?

Apparently able to read minds on top of her baking skills, Susan smiled. Her head tilted to the side, listening for something that was probably the sound of her husband's second quarter snore. "Bob still thinks we didn't know about Charlie going missing, doesn't he?"

"Yes, Ma'am," said Sam.

"I like to let him think that. Charlie, too."

"Why's that?"

"It would have hurt Charlie to think that that had had anything to do with Lillie's death. It was hard enough with the doctor having no real explanation for what happened to her. The first week or so after the news about the invasion came, Lillie was . . . She wasn't acting like herself. I have never known her to have less than absolute faith in Charlie, but those days, she was so sure that he had been killed. I would catch her standing under our tree talking to herself and crying. When his name made the casualty list, I thought she'd cry herself right apart, she was shaking so hard. I stayed with her the whole time and tried to help her take care of things until we got the official word. She spent most of that time locked up in their bedroom playing the record of their song over and over. It was the most awful thing I think I have ever seen. The last night that week, I came out of the house to sit with her when she told me to wait where I was and that she'd be back in a while. She said she was going for a drive. When she got home, she didn't say anything, but when we got up the next morning it was all normal again. It was like she had somehow forgotten everything that had been happening the last few days and was somehow herself again. There was nothing unusual about any of it."

The old woman finished with Dean's hand, handed him the knife, and once again set him to work. She shuffled the few steps back to her stool, gratefully taking the hand that Sam offered to help her down. She blew out a rough breath, laughing.

"You okay?" asked Sam.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," she smiled. "And they don't make hips like they used to."

Over his shoulder, Dean said as the knife came back down, "They don't make anything like they used to. I feel cheap and cheated."

While Sam snorted when he couldn't hold his laugh, Susan narrowed her eyes at Dean's back and pointed her finger at him. "My Bobby warned me you kids were smooth. I bet you are a real handful to your people."

Thinking of their Bobby at that, Dean flashed the woman his most brilliant grin. "They don't make 'em like me anymore either."

"I'll bet they don't," said Susan. She gave Sam a conspiratorial nudge. "I bet he doesn't let you forget it either, does he?"

"No, Ma'am," agreed Sam wholeheartedly, shaking his head.

The conversation died down for a while as Susan delegated tasks to the brothers, setting trays of candy out the back door to cool in the winter air, getting trays of sprits into the oven, and breaking apart more blocks of candy into the fifteen empty gallon ice cream buckets that lined the floor for each flavor. The kitchen was ridiculously hot, but the company was worth it. As things turned out, neither brother minded being under the woman's thumb for a while. For one afternoon, it was almost like they could pretend to have had a grandmother.

It wasn't until Susan downed her afternoon pills with a cold cup of coffee that she picked the conversation back up to where it had left off. "I never did finish telling you boys about Lillie, did I? I'm sorry. I'm just chock-full of senior moments these days. I swear they took a few brain cells out for extra measure when they replaced my hip. You know doctors: they aren't happy unless you have more than one problem. So where was I?"

"You said she was talking to herself under a tree," supplied Dean.

"Sounds crazy, doesn't it?" Susan asked. "I thought it was. Not that I blamed her. She was so sure that Charlie was gone. She even tried to tell me that she had seen him and that it was him she was talking to. I remember not having any idea what to say to that, so I told her that she should be hospitable and invite the poor bastard in. She never mentioned it again. Like I said, she went for a drive in the middle of the night, and by the time she got back, she was back to her old self again. Everything was fine. She even said she thought that Charlie was okay. We both waited to hear from him and Bob, but the mail was hard to reach us around then. A lot of mail got lost with them moving around all the time. The day she died was the first time she had got a letter from him since D-Day. She got three of them, all written after June 6th, so we knew he was okay. I'll never forget it: she laughed the entire thing off. She made me promise to never tell Charlie that she'd fallen so apart. We went out to celebrate, so I thought everything was fine. The next morning, I woke up and she was gone. I looked all over the county for her. The sheriff finally found her laying in the middle of the road. I don't . . . I don't even know what she was doing out there. It was barely two weeks before Christmas, and she was out there without even a jacket on. To this day, I have no idea why she did it."

Sam reached across the kitchen to the opposite counter, grabbed a dry towel, and handed it to Susan so that she could dry her eyes. He looked over her head at Dean, who nodded back to him. He'd heard it, too. He didn't look any happier about it than Sam felt.

They didn't get the immediate chance to ask any further questions when Susan was interrupted by a banging of the front door and holler. "MOM!"

"IN THE KITCHEN," replied Susan, shaking her head in apology at her guests. "DON'T YELL IN THE HOUSE!"

"LET ME GET MY BOOTS OFF. SORRY WE'RE LATE."

"My middle," the woman explained. She cocked her head again, listening with the trained ear of a woman who had had a full house her entire life. "And her middle. Poor kid. Ten bucks says he locks himself upstairs in less than five minutes."

From the front entryway, the mother's voice threatened punishment. "DON'T YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT. YOU GO SAY 'HELLO' TO YOUR GRANDMOTHER RIGHT THIS MINUTE."

Heavy footsteps announced the arrival of a very unhappy teenaged boy with spiked orange hair and torn jeans. He kept his head down as he rounded the corner, stepped up to his grandmother, and planted a kiss on her waiting cheek. "Hey, Grams."

Susan winked at the kid, a conspiratorial look lighting her eyes. "Your mom's in a mood again, huh? Cut her some slack, kiddo. She's grumpy because she'll never be as cool as you."

The boy hid his blush from the strangers in the kitchen and mumbled, "Grams."

"I left you a present upstairs. If your mother tries to stop you going up there again, tell her I needed something. I don't expect to see you down here until dinner." At the smile she received, Susan's face glowed with the knowledge that she would be keeping her title of _Fabulous Grandma_ for another day. "Off you go." With another kiss and thanks, the boy ran off toward the stairs, breezing past his obviously irritated mother. Susan offered her daughter a stern look then hollered after her grandson, "Make sure you turn the light on, please!"

There was a long silence before the boy's voice floated down from the top of the stairs. "THANKS, GRAMS! YOU'RE AWESOME!"

The woman grinned happily and explained to both mother and guests, "Give the kid a book and he's the happiest kid on Earth."

"He reads too much," the daughter grumped. "I really wish you wouldn't encourage that habit so much. I can't get him to do anything around the house with his nose always stuck in those damn books you give him. He's never going to make it in the real world if he can't find his way _to_ the real world, Mom."

"Which is why his world will never be as boring or unimaginative as yours," said Susan with a not-so-surreptitious glance at the clock above the archway into the kitchen. "Lighten up, Nancy, if for no other reason than that my guests have been doing your work for you for the last two hours."

Dean tried not to look superior at the daughter, but it was proving to be harder than he thought. Sam shot him a warning look, which only made his brother's haughty grin grow. To draw the women's attention away from Dean — and to end the uncomfortable silence that Nancy was radiating at the intruders to her mother's kitchen — Sam nodded Susan's throat. "I like your necklace."

Old fingers clasped around the faded gold tree. "It was Lillie's. I have one, too, but it's in the safe. Charlie and Bob had them made for us the first Christmas we were married."

"The detail is amazing. It looks just like the one in Charlie's yard."

"It's our promise tree," she explained while scowling right back at her daughter until Nancy stopped glaring at Dean and Sam. "The four of us had a lot invested in that tree. It was a wedding present the four of us bought for ourselves. The plan was that we would all be together to see it grow over the rest of our lives. We knew Bob and Charlie were going to be leaving, so the last night we were all together, we all put our blood into that tree with the promise that they would come home to us when the war was over. This was their way of reminding us that they weren't forgetting that promise. I kept Lillie's necklace in case Charlie would want it when he got back, but he wanted me to have it. I don't think I've had it off more than a few hours since. That batch of cookies is going to burn if you don't get it out of the oven thirty seconds ago, Sam."

With a start, Sam grabbed for the potholders on the counter and drew the cookie sheet out for her, only to find that there was no counter space anywhere for him to set them down. Susan must have seen him looking around because she snapped her fingers at Nancy, who quickly moved things around on the table to make room, pushing Dean out of the way with hardly a glance.

Bob chose that moment to come into the kitchen with a yawn. To Sam and Dean he said, "I told you she'd put you to work. I hope the old girl has made it worth your while."

Dean turned on his best flirt and said, "The best woman I've been with in months."

Both Bob and Susan laughed while Nancy sputtered. The man pounded his daughter on the back to help her catch her breath then eyed her warningly. "We're old, Nancy-bell, not dead. Deal with it."

With a quick glance at his brother, whose raised eyebrows gave agreement, Dean hooked his elbow and jutted it toward Susan. "Care to walk us out?"

"You're leaving?" asked Susan.

"We've taken up too much of your time already," said Sam. "You both have been very helpful."

Susan and Bob shared a look then started toward the front door with the brothers in tow. They made pleasant chit-chat while Sam and Dean tied up their boots and threw on their jackets. They made empty promises to keep in touch and to enjoy the pending holiday season. Hands were shaken all around and gentle feminine kisses planted on eager cheeks of all three men. The old couple slipped into their boots to walk the brothers out to their car, still talking all the way.

"Thanks again," Sam said as he opened his car door. "For everything. It was a nice afternoon."

"Glad to help. It was nice to have company," said Susan. "You boys won't be strangers now, will you?"

"We'll be around," Dean said casually over the roof of the car as a car drove past him, fishtailing on a patch of ice. He tapped the roof twice and announced, "C'mon, Sam. Time to hit the road."

Once both brothers were tucked into their seats, Susan bent over to be able to look at them. Her eyes turned sly on them for a moment. "By the way? The next time you want to know something about Charlie or Lillie, just ask. No stories."

"Ma'am?" asked Dean.

"They were both only children," she said then shut Sam's car door for him, clearly letting them know that they were busted.

"Huh," both brothers wondered out loud as Dean thundered the car's engine.

From their front porch, Susan and Bob waved them off, _Never Kid a Kidder_ smiles on their faces as Dean backed the car out of their pleasant, welcoming driveway. Some people really were kind of nice.

(End Part Three of Four)


	4. Chapter 4

**The Lucky Strikes**

_Part Four_

— **June 11, 1944 —**

Inside the house, the grandfather clock struck midnight — not that Lillie was really noticing things like time or order these days. Time and order were for people who had a purpose in their lives. They were for people who still had something to have a purpose about. She had been careful not to say such things to Susan, knowing that her best friend would be devastated to know she was even capable of such thought. But then, they were pretty sure that Bobby was okay. Susan was still whole. In their entire lives, this was the first time that Lillie was fairly sure that Susan would not understand.

The blanket around her shoulders did nothing to make the night seem warmer. For June, it was still cool at night. The mosquitoes were already at it, though. Living this close to the river was just asking for punishment and/or retribution, depending on whose side you were on. For the sake of her own sanity, she planned to take out as many of the little vampires as she could before her life was over. They deserved it for ruining her evening. Couldn't a girl lose her mind in peace?

She was still seeing Charlie every time she dared to leave the confines of her bedroom. There were a few times that she had caught him standing at the doorway to the attic, although she wasn't entirely sure why other than that he could see the entire floor from there. He had always been such a cautious, overprotective man. Most of the time, he was waiting for her under their tree like when they were kids and he'd climb her parents' tree to her window at all hours. Whenever she and Susan left the house, she would try not to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her anyway. When they would return, there he would be, staring and waiting for her. She tried to give him a look to tell him that she would see him at night and talk to him then, but she never knew if the silent communications were getting through to him. Nineteen months apart was a long time for signals to get crossed.

When the clock's chime stopped half way through its ritual, Lillie looked around. The wind picked up, tugging at the finicky electrical wiring and sending every light down the street into flickers. Her eyes instinctively went to the skies, looking for signs of tornadoes, even though it was a little early yet in the season for this far north. There wasn't a cloud in the sky to hide the stars. Then as soon as it started, everything returned to normal. The howling of the wind died down, leaving only the sound of a whistle behind it.

The whistle was quietly accompanied by the steady clunk-click of heavy shoes on the sidewalk down the street. Lillie peeled her eyes into the darkness, wondering which of her neighbors would be out so late and if she should make a quick dash into the house to avoid calls of impropriety for being out in her night dress on the porch. She couldn't see a face under the brim of the black hat. The only thing that came from under it was the jolly whistle of a man who had perhaps seen one too many brews. The slight skip in his step was enough to make her want to tell him to cross the street and keep his happiness to himself.

When the walker stopped at where the sidewalk met her front walk, it took everything Lillie had not to scream. She could swear that there was a flash of light under the brim of the hat where the man's eyes should be, eyes that would be staring right through her if they could. Her own eyes darted to the side out of reflex, looking for Charlie. He was there as expected, standing ramrod straight with a menacing glare at the stranger at their walk. He started forward, but after only two steps, he disappeared, leaving Lillie alone for the second time in a week.

The man continued whistling as he took to the walk, coming up right to the bottom step of the porch. He did not attempt to remove his hat or ask her permission to join her. He stood there, seemingly sucking all of the warmth out of the night air around him and just waiting. She wasn't sure how she knew, but Lillie was pretty sure that he was waiting for her permission to speak. Everything in her told her not to say a word, that he would go away if she left it long enough, but he stayed there without looking up at her with his hands folded neatly in front of him. He wasn't going away.

Despite the stinging sickness in her gut that told her to do otherwise, Lillie stammered out, "Can I help you?"

Again something under the hat flashed, but the face under the brim finally revealed itself. The man's eyes weren't yellow like Lillie had initially thought, but they also were far from kind. She wanted to get up right then and there. Charlie had taught her to fire a shotgun in precaution; it was right inside the front door if she got there fast enough. Susan would wake up at the eek of the door. Together, the two of them could take this guy. She felt her eyes go to the tree again, as if Charlie would still be there to give her a sign of what to do, but for the first time since seeing him there, she felt as if her husband had truly abandoned her to this world alone.

The man under the hat did not give her a chance to do more than flit her eyes before he said evenly, "You have yourself quite a problem, little lady." He paused as a breeze circled him, wrapping both himself and Lillie in a blanket of cold. "You have a problem that I may be able to help you with."

"I don't need any help with anything," said Lillie bravely.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

The man's laugh was hardly warm or kind in any way. It was sarcastic at best, warning of danger and instant death if she chose to ignore what he had to offer. "I'm sure the prospect of life without your husband is quite scary. I would find it scary . . . alone in this big house with no real security, no man to come home to, to walk with, to share your dreams with. Alone would be a mighty terrifying place to be in in this house, in this life. You must be a lot braver than I could ever be to willingly let your husband die on the other side of the world, all alone, never to come home to you again. Of course, knowing the people I know who know the things they know, I wouldn't have the strength not to ask them for help. I'd let them help me, no matter what the cost. You, my dear, are much braver than I."

Lillie couldn't help but feel hypnotized by the man's words. Any other time, it might have sounded to her like nails on a chalk board, but the more he talked, the more melodic his tones became. His mysterious eyes lulled her into a calm that she hadn't felt since the moment Charlie had appeared beneath their tree. She didn't even feel the need to look to see if he'd returned. All she knew was that she wanted to hear more.

The man removed his hat, twisted it around in his hands by the brim, and said, "Forgive me for disturbing you this fine evening. Please accept my condolences. I'll trouble you no further."

"Wait!"

"Yes?"

"You can help my Charlie? You can bring him back?"

"_I_ can't," the man said then waited, as if relishing the sheer despair that washed over her. Again his eyes glinted before he said, "But I know who can."

"How do I find this person?"

The man removed a piece of paper from his pocket then held it close to his breast. His head shook with feigned, almost melodramatic regret as he said, "Maybe this wasn't the right time. You're grieving. It wouldn't be right."

Fierce color flushed Lillie's eyes as she stared the man down, determined. "Leaving my Charlie alone to die over there is what isn't right. Now are you going to help me or not?"

Without any further provocation, the man handed Lillie the paper. The cold voice returned, reminding her of the Widow Peterson's husband and the way he had scared every child within a ten block radius of their house when she was a child. "Collect the items on this list then drive out to a crossroads in the country. Bury the items in the center of the road and wait. My friend will be along to help you as quickly as possible. The last few evenings since the invasion began have been overloaded with clients in situations similar to yours, as I'm sure you can imagine. The closer to midnight that you do this, the louder your call will be."

"Why are you doing this for me?" Lillie asked timidly.

The man didn't answer her question. He simple replaced his hat to his head, offered the widow a low bow, and turned on his heel toward the street. Lillie watched him pass along, whistling his tune. It wasn't until both sound and the man disappeared on the wind that she realized what song he had hypnotized her with. It was Charlie's favorite song.

— **December 10, 2007 —**

The next morning, Dean was still twisting about Charlie trying to drive his car. He also didn't appreciate that Sam as only half-heartedly agreeing with him, even if the car checked out fine. Sam was better occupied with wrapping his hands around two coffee cups (maybe one day the itty bitty things would grow up to be real cups) and wishing like hell that he had thought to pick up a pair of gloves at any of the Targets that he'd seen coming in, out, and around town. He _knew_ there was a reason that he let Dean do the job hunting during the winter. His brother was skilled at avoiding the sub-zero weather. Dean was also good at putting his brother in it when the need arose. They were going to have to have a long chat about rank issues again here one of these days.

They had been there a good half an hour before Andreea joined them bearing the files that they had asked her to retrieve for them from the county courthouse. They seriously doubted that WANTED posters with their faces were plastered on the post office or courthouse walls, but they weren't going to take any chances that people actually paid attention to those things, either. The woman had been more than happy to help once they stopped by her room to ask. She was starting to get a little antsy in the tiny hotel room and wanted her house back as quickly as possible. When Dean asked if she still thought Phantom Denis was on her side, she rolled her eyes. Sam kicked him under the table, rattling the unused china and cutlery, which prompted Andreea to give Sam a grateful clap on the back. Her apology was a mile long when she saw the brothers' synchronized wince at the contact. Dean made a mental note to have his brother's shoulder checked out the next chance they got; Sam made a mental note to keep his overprotective brother from trying to drag him to a clinic to get his shoulder checked out the next chance he got.

After adding all of their other research to the pile, half of the procured documents went to Sam, the other half to Dean, and Andreea kept up a running (and it was practically _running_) commentary as their surly waitress dive-bombed and left them. Sam shifted through his pile with a grimace. The photocopy was shady at best. The ink had most likely faded on the original documents to the point that he was lucky to be getting as much as he was, but that didn't make his job any easier. The coroner's report wasn't helping him much either. Still, he made a notation of the coroner's name and sent up a silent wish that the guy might still be alive and have half his capacities in case their luck ran out. He wasn't entirely sure why he did it, but he also made a note of Lillie Wallace's date of death with the intention of asking Susan and Bob Beckett if there was any chance that that date had some sort of significance. It was a long shot, but right now, they were working off a lot of long shots.

"Find anything?" he finally asked across the table.

"That we're colossally screwed?" grumbled Dean. He flipped a sheet of paper off to Sam. "The funeral home paperwork is ever-so-kindly telling me that they were both cremated. Custody of her ashes was given to her mother, who died in 1956. His ashes were taken care of by Bob and Susan."

Sam threw his arm up onto the heater vent next to the window and wrapped his other hand around his warmed coffee cup. Thinking out loud, he said, "So something else has to be tying Charlie to the house."

"Two Charlies," corrected Dean. He took a long gulp of his coffee and leaned back in the booth, jaw working back and forth in thought. His eyes darkened, clearly unhappy with the answer he was coming up with. "We have to get back in that house."

Andreea's eyes went wide at the suggestion, clearly remembering seeing her two companions being ejected from her home two days before by a force she had once considered friendly and merely a nuisance. She'd wanted Phantom Denis to back off, maybe move on or whatever it is that ghosts do when they finish their unfinished business, but she hadn't wanted anyone to be hurt in the process. Seeing Dean come through the second story window had told her that the woman from Missouri had been right to be so cautious. Remembering the threat she'd received from that woman, she shook her head. "You aren't going back in there."

"You're firing us?" asked Dean.

"No."

"Then we're going to have to go back in there sometime, unless you plan on having two dudes watch your every move in that house for the next fifty years."

The woman shrugged a rueful shrug, the _At least there would be a 'dude' to watch_ nothing less than implied. For the first time since they'd met her, she did not seem at all nervous or like she would shake apart from the pressure of all the words in her head. "I can't let you in there if it's going to get you hurt. It wasn't like this before. He'd never hurt me, and if there was even a chance that he had hurt anyone in the house before me, I would have heard about it. My realtor isn't that cruel. She would have said something about it. At least, I think she would. I'm still going to have a little _Come See Jesus_ with her about all this, but even if she had known and didn't tell me, this town isn't so big that I wouldn't have found out about it. It's a college town. College kids talk, and if there is anything college kids like to talk about in their college town it's their college ghosts. I'm close enough to campus that my house wouldn't escape the rumor mill. So no, I can't let you in until you can promise me that you aren't going to get hurt. That woman made me promise not to get you hurt, and she sounded damn scary. I believe her when she says she can hurt me back."

Dean took a good hard look at the woman sitting next to his brother, trying to size up just how much he could do with her. He tapped his fingers against the same heating vent Sam was clinging to for dear life, weighing his options to the rhythm of the chorus in _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ like he always did in these situations like it was his own personal theme song. When he came to his decision, he looked at his brother, who was waiting patiently. Sam knew him too well.

"You got something?" asked Sam.

"We need to get in that house, but Charlie isn't going to let us," started Dean. "I hate to put it this way because spooks just aren't supposed to be like this for us, _but_ . . . He always treats her like a lady. He would never throw her around the way he would us."

Following the train of thought, Sam said, "If he thinks it's only her coming in, he's going to give her free rein to run around. She can find what we're looking for without us having to get in at all."

"'She' _me_, 'she'?" balked Andreea. "You can't be serious."

Dean shook his head. "Yeah, I am. We spent enough time with the guy's best friend the last two days to know what he was like. Whatever his issues with us, he isn't going to take them up with you. All of the noise and stuff that's been going on in your house, he was probably only trying to get your attention. He'll let you in."

They were still discussing the ins and outs of whether or not it would be a good thing for the woman to attempt to enter her own home when they pulled up in front of it an hour later. By that time, the argument had been pared down to its simplest form: _what's the worst Charlie's going to do — lock you out of your own house? He's already done that. _Andreea hadn't exactly responded well to the logic, but she couldn't argue with it either. The crux was the spirit wasn't going to be letting the brothers in, whether they asked politely or not. It was up to her to loosen the ghost up.

"You're sure about this?" asked Andreea for the umpteenth time, getting out of the car with them.

"We'll be right here if you need us, but I'm pretty sure you won't," said Dean. "You'll be in and out, no problem. Grab yourself some stuff to keep him happy then look around for any signs of what he's been up to the last few days. Us being here has probably made him more desperate to find whatever it is he's looking for, so wherever he's looking is where we want to be."

"First sign of trouble, we'll come right in," Sam added. "Just yell."

Andreea started across the street then turned to face them when she'd reached the curb connected to her yard. She shivered from anything but the cold and said, "I don't think yelling will be a problem. Fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes," both brothers confirmed. To be sure, they both waited quietly, barely blinking so that they could catch any possible movement in the house. It wasn't until Andreea was able to get in the house without any resistance that they took a breath, slightly assured that they had made the right move. When she waved at them a minute later from a second story window with a big smile on her face, they started to breathe regularly again.

They watched in silence for a while, just enjoying the presence of each other. It was a beautiful day, even with the cloud cover. The snow was coming down so quietly, it made the whole world seem peaceful. Sam made a mental note to find a place where they could enjoy the quiet like this once the job was over. They'd been at it hard since the Devil's Gate cluster. Dean deserved at least a day or two of quiet. So did he. For now, though, they had a job to do.

Breaking them both from the moment, Sam said, "You know that Charlie isn't ever going to find what he's looking for, right?"

"Lillie?"

"Yeah." Sam looked down at his boots, fascinated with the swirls that the mixtures of snow and salt had made when they dried over his toes. It was a good thing he didn't care much about how he looked anymore or the mess would have driven him crazy. Jess never would have let him out of the house wearing these things. If his home wasn't the car, Dean wouldn't have let him in there, either. Thinking about those swirls was suddenly a lot easier than thinking about what he knew he needed to be talking about. He would much rather have talked to Dean about the mess on his boots, too, but instead he forged on, trying to get it out as quickly as he could. "You heard Bob. If he's here, it's because Lillie isn't. And the way Susan talked about how Lillie was found? Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here, but . . . ."

"You're thinking Lillie made a deal for Charlie?"

"You aren't?" asked Sam.

Dean wiped his hand over his mouth, sticking the nail of his thumb between his teeth. He chewed it hard, down to the quick. This was _not_ the direction he'd wanted this job to have taken. It was supposed to be a simple haunting, nothing more. A tickle in the back of his mind made him want to call up Missouri right then and there and ask her if she'd sent them Andreea's way on purpose, if she knew what he had done. It was almost cruel, especially to Sam. He had to give his kid brother credit, though. He was doing his best to be professional (as professional as hunting went, anyway). Knowing he needed to return the courtesy, Dean straightened up and said, "Yeah. Yeah, I do, but how are we going to be sure? It's not like I'm itching to summon a demon to ask about a sixty-three-year-old collection, especially when we don't know what we'd be summoning."

"Wait a minute," said Sam, ideas ping-ponging in his brain. He could feel Dean watching him and trying to figure out what he was thinking, but he tried to shut it out. There was something there, right there, that he knew if he could only remember the exact words, he'd have the answer. Of course, the exact words didn't want to come to him. He could hear how Susan said them, her tone of voice so clear. He just couldn't quite hear her words. Then out of nowhere, he knew what it was. He pulled out his phone, holding up a hand to silence his brother's opening mouth. He pulled out his notes, found Susan's phone number, and dialed. The woman answered on the second ring. "Hi, Mrs. Beckett. It's Sam."

"Good morning, sweetheart! How are you?"

"We're good, Ma'am. Thanks for asking. And you?"

"Ready for all this Christmas stuff to be over. If I have to tie one more red ribbon around another godforsaken box of gingerbread bastard children, I may just have to slit my own wrists," the woman said cheerfully. "Never let anyone tell you that Christmas is anything less than work, Sam."

"I won't." Sam laughed. He really was going to be saddened to leave this woman behind. The way she talked, she was what his father would have called 'spunky'. His dad had used the same word more than once to describe their grandmother.

"I'm guessing you and your brother aren't available to help me out in the kitchen today, so what's the question?"

The image of Susan's knowing smile still burned in his brain, Sam went for the direct approach this time around. "Can I ask, did anything significant happen the day that Lillie died?"

"Not really," she said slowly, clearly thinking out loud. "We spent most of the morning helping my mother out around the house. Mother's eyesight wasn't so good, so we did a lot of the mending that needed work. My father could wear a hole into steel-toed boots, so you can just imagine what he could do to a pair of socks. It was Christmas, so we were in the kitchen most of the afternoon. I remember, we barely made it to the post office on time, but we were so glad we did. She got a bundle of letters from Charlie. We went out to celebrate since it was the first real proof we'd had that he was all right. We lit the place up, I'll tell you what. We came home, went to bed . . . When I woke up, she was gone."

"And she was out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Yes?"

Before she could ask what he was thinking (he could hear her wanting to ask), Sam quickly asked his next question. "Where she was found, is it _still_ in the middle of nowhere?"

"Oh, no, sweetheart," said Susan. "That intersection is a Barnes and Noble now."

"Intersection?" asked Sam, looking right at Dean to make sure his brother knew that he was thinking that they pretty much had confirmation. "Was it a four way stop?"

"Just outside of town, yes. Sam, is something wrong?"

"No, Ma'am," he answered her concern quickly. "Listen, Susan, I'm going to have to run, but I will give you a call before we have to leave town for the holidays, all right?"

The smile the woman had had on her face when she'd waved them off came through now on her voice in his ear as she said, "I can't imagine what it is the two of you are doing trying to understand what happened to Charlie and Lillie, and I'm not sure that I want to know, but whatever it is you're looking for, I hope you're doing it for the right reasons. They were good people whom I loved very much. If it's at all avoidable, please don't disturb their peace."

Sam startled for a moment, wondering how best to answer her without sounding like he was crazy. He turned his back on his brother, feeling Dean watching him too intently. He knew his brother wouldn't exactly approve of the answer he was about to give the kind old lady, but she deserved an answer that was at least somewhat close to the truth. Bob and Susan had trusted them; he needed to trust her back. Besides, even through the phone, Sam was pretty sure Susan would know if he lied to her. "They haven't had peace yet, but we're sure going to try to get them some. Thanks, Susan. We _will _call."

He snapped the phone shut, disconnecting the call before she could say anything else. He stared at the house across the street and could feel it watching him right back. He shivered, not entirely sure that it was from the cold. Where his thoughts were going, it was going to get even colder soon enough.

"Well?"

Sam kept his eyes front, afraid to look anywhere near his brother. He wanted to keep his next question about this job instead of their other situation, but he unfortunately needed an answer to one to answer the other. He nodded, steeling himself for what was to come, and asked, "When you were negotiating your deal, what was the lowest the demon was going to go?"

"What: you mean, like, time?"

"Yeah."

Knowing that he had kept most of this to himself so far, Dean felt he needed to give his brother an honest answer. Maybe it would even make Sam feel a little better about things if he thought that Dean hadn't just gone for the first offer he could get, that he didn't hate himself as much as Sam seemed to think he did these days. "I started out with ten years, but she didn't want to hear it. I think maybe I got down to six or seven before she called it all off and tried to leave. She wasn't going to actually leave without a deal, I don't think, but . . . " He took a breath, letting the cold air warm the ice in his lungs. It was bad enough that he had to remember that night in his dreams. Doing it when he was awake physically hurt. "The bitch would have taken me right then and there, I think, but she wanted to play with me. The thing is, I would have done even that as long as I could have been sure you were okay."

"You think maybe Dad did that, too? That the little bit of time we had with him in the hospital before he . . . Maybe that was his one condition? That he got to be sure you were okay first?"

Dean came around the car to stand next to his brother, shoulder to shoulder, staring straight ahead to avoid having to look at Sam just as much as Sam was avoiding looking at him. It struck him as odd that they had never discussed the possible details of their father's deal, but then, they had done a lot of avoiding about talking about their father in the last year. He had become quite practiced at framing his words carefully for his brother where their father was concerned. He knew he couldn't come out and say '_He wanted to make sure to pass on his lovely parting gift to us that I needed to save you just to make sure that The Demon still didn't get its way_'. That would be cruel, even if he'd had the thought on numerous occasions. In his anger, he had convinced himself almost whole-heartedly that the only reason their father had stuck around was to stick it to The Demon one last time by giving him a head's up and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with his child's well-being. He'd been that angry. But Sam was looking for a helpful answer, not a scornful one. He looked down at his boots as he said carefully, "I think Dad wanted to be sure we were both going to be okay. He was lousy about it, but he said 'goodbye' to us the only way he knew how. And yeah, he probably wanted to know that I was okay without any catches. He wouldn't have trusted that sonofabitch to take him without some assurances. Why — what are you thinking?"

"Do you remember that time when I was, like, seven or eight and we spent a couple days on the boardwalk in Atlantic City with Dad and Caleb? Caleb refused to see the fortune teller, even though I begged him because I thought it would be fun?"

"You drove us all nuts that day," said Dean with a chuckle. "I thought he was going to throw you right off the pier. When we left, you kept badgering him to tell you why he didn't want to know his future since the old lady told you that you were going to be rich and famous. You were so mad at him because he told you that she probably said the same thing to everybody, so you couldn't understand why he wouldn't go in himself. He said he never wanted to know when his number would be up because it would take all the fun out of whatever time he had left. Sam, what does this have to do with anything?"

"What if Lillie thought the same way?" Sam asked. "What if she was offered the standard ten year deal but didn't think she could deal with waiting it out for Charlie to get home only then to have to one day tell him that she knew she was going to die because she had made a deal to bring him home? Maybe all she asked for was the chance to make sure he was okay before she went, just like Dad. Susan said that the day she died, Lillie got the first letters from Charlie that were written after he would have come back from the dead. What if she got her confirmation, went out to wherever she had made her initial deal, and died there as part of the whole thing?"

With the specter of Hell glaring at him not too long from now, Dean couldn't imagine wanting to rush to the finish line like that. Then again, some would say even his year wasn't nearly enough. Ten years probably didn't seem like enough. But in his desperation at the time, he all too well understood why someone would have been willing to make a deal like that. He was guessing that there had been an awful lot of deals made that day, which was probably one of the selling points to begin with. His thoughts catching up with the dark place he knew Sam had parked his, he quietly agreed, "Yeah. She probably didn't think she had anything left to lose. The crossroads demon would have played on that. It's not like Lillie was like us. She wouldn't have known what she was truly getting into. All she probably knew was that someone was offering to help her save her husband. Susan said she was lonely unless she was with the three of them so she probably didn't think she could handle her life without him. That's what the demon plays on best."

Sam would have loved to ask his brother to elaborate on that one, but he knew that as soon as he did, Dean would tell him to focus on their job instead of on him. For now, he could live with that. They did have a job to do, after all. Andreea would probably like to get back in her house here one of these days. So rather than annoy his brother, Sam said with a fair amount of certainty, "Okay, so we know why there was the lag time in between when Charlie died, came back, and Lillie died."

Following his brother's train of thought, Dean supplied, "Which tells us that she isn't part of our picture in the house. Yeah, it sucks, but there's nothing we can do about her. What we need is to find a way to get rid of Charlie. . . _–ies_, Charlies, which puts us right back where we were, with no way to get in the house long enough to find out how to send him on his merry."

"And how do we get rid of two of them anyway? Better yet, how are there even two of them in the first place? Lillie brought Charlie back. He died old and lonesome, not twenty-three and married with his whole life ahead of him. That younger guy shouldn't be here at all."

Too many pieces suddenly came together for Dean too quickly, making his head rush. He bent over, hands on his thighs to keep himself from falling flat into the over-salted street. He could hear the damned ocean in his ears, it was so loud. He heard Bob telling them about how Charlie had changed when he'd come back, seemingly bullet-proof and ready to head into any danger to protect Bob. He heard the stories about how Charlie had been _different_, like a piece of his soul was gone. Then he heard the words that he had chewed on relentlessly over the last six months, taunting him like they were brand new.

_How certain are you that what you brought back is one hundred percent pure Sam?_

Before Sam could worry about him, Dean straightened up, running both hands through his hair. Though he knew Sam would want to know what made him think so, Dean had no intention of telling his brother exactly how he had a pretty good idea what had happened. He put his _Big Brother Is Always Right_ assurance into his voice and said, "The crossroads demon didn't have the power to bring all of Charlie back. Part of him had to stay behind. That's why he came back different. Bob thought he was different."

To his credit, Sam pocketed the idea about what the implications were for himself and stayed focused on Charlie Wallace. He thoughtfully asked, "If the problem isn't Lillie, you think maybe there was something tying him to this place that the demon couldn't counter?"

"You mean the promise he keeps talking about?"

Sam's eyebrows disappeared under his bangs while he looked for agreement or at least a somewhat similar line of thinking. "If we knew what that promise was, it might tell us how to get him to move on."

Clapping a hand on his brother's uninjured shoulder, Dean chirped sarcastically, "Why don't you go on in there and ask him, kiddo? I'll just wait here and keep the car warm for you."

Sam swiped the hand away, but he didn't bother to fight back otherwise. He had a different question on his mind, one that had been bothering him since talking with Susan. "Hey, Dean? How do you think Lillie found out about this stuff?"

Sensing that it was a real question, that there was actually a purpose behind it, Dean said quietly, "How does anybody find out about anything?"

"Susan, Bob, Lillie . . . They don't seem like the kind of people who would have even the slightest knowledge of the kind of stuff we deal with."

"We weren't the kind of people who knew this kind of thing either."

_That you know of, anyway_, Sam thought, his mind flashing to that never-too-far-away replay in his mind of his mother's last words in this world. _It's you._ He didn't exactly want to burden Dean with that knowledge, though, so he elaborated in the only other way he could. "Lillie had to have had help. She didn't get there by herself."

"Does it really matter?" sighed Dean. He was starting to see that look on his brother's face, the one that required their usual buck up of _We can't save everyone_. He suddenly felt like Sam was on the path, the one that was going to lead to a lot of guilt over not being able to save a woman gone sixty-five years who was in no way savable. "She made her deal, Sam. She was probably a nice girl who was manipulated by the black hats into doing something because she was desperate, and she probably didn't deserve it, but that doesn't change the fact that we can't help her. All we can do is help Charlie do whatever it is that happens to them when we get rid of them and get Andreea back in her house sometime before the year is out. Right?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," said Dean, settling that issue for the time being. "So let's hope Andreea can get a good bead on what we need to do next and get everyone where they belong so that we can get the hell out of this town. This whole job is starting to give me the creeps."

Right on cue, Andreea stepped out the front door, overnight bag in hand. She ran to the car as soon as she was clear of the porch and didn't look back. She shook her head at them when she was half way across the street. Taking the hint that she wasn't ready to talk, the brothers each went to their respective sides of the car, Dean opening her door for her. She practically dived in, shrouding herself in her jacket like it could somehow protect her from whatever she had seen or heard. To be safe and keep from spooking the woman more than she already was, Dean drove them back to the hotel in silence, letting everyone soak up the relief that distance from the house and the situation brought them.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in the hotel, mostly talking Andreea through her fears. She wasn't entirely sure why she was afraid because there had been nothing in the house at all to indicate that she should be afraid of anything, but if she was going to be afraid of anything, it would be the mess that had been torn through her second floor hallway and kitchen. Both of the men had been there, but they didn't speak to her or hinder her exploration in any way. She would have tried to talk to them, but she figured that would get her in the kind of trouble that would only land all three of them in an unwanted situation. She was greatly relieved when Dean told her she had done the right thing.

It took a while, but they were able to piece together more of a pattern from the documents that they had found. The brothers were careful not to talk about demonic deals in front of their job, but they were able to speak vaguely enough that they were able to decide that, yes, if they were able to get rid of one Charlie, it would get rid of them both. They tossed a few theories around about what it was going to take to get Charlie out of the house, ranging from therapy ("_Dude, just because it worked with Molly doesn't mean I can get all touchy-feely again!"_), rituals ("_No, _I'll_ do it because your Latin sucks!_") to full on arson ("_You are _not_ burning my house down!_"). The only real consensus they came to was that it was all going to go down that night. They would just have to be prepared for anything.

After a dinner where Andreea mostly pushed her food around on her plate, she took them to a shop downtown that pretty much had Dean ready to blow his wad right then and there. Between all the vinyl and supplies handy to their trade, he never wanted to leave. He played long enough that even Andreea's smile returned to her face. They walked out with everything the brothers could possibly need ritual-wise for at least the next few months. For Dean, Sam also picked up Houdini Action Figure (complete with all the tools of the trade including a straight jacket); for Sam, Dean picked up an Albert Einstein Action Figure (complete with realistic hair, small parts not suitable for children under 3 years). Andreea was struck with the idea that these two had only been children when they were adults. Neither brother disagreed with her.

It was well after nine when they parked in front of Andreea's house for one last shot at the place. Dean gave her a final opportunity to stay in the car if she wanted, but she refused. Sam tried to relax her by saying that she obviously didn't trust Dean's Latin either, earning himself a good clowning. Rolling her eyes at them, she was the first out of the car.

The three of them stood at the curb staring up at the house like it was going to fly off its foundation to come after them. Lights flickered on the porch and second floor Morse code warnings to stay away. A few random memories of the _Amityville Horror_ came to mind for all three of them, chilling them more than the winter night ever could.

"Well . . . " Dean muttered.

"Well . . . " Sam agreed.

Another long beat went by before Dean said, "I get him first, you're washing and detailing the car once we get far enough away from all this damn salt."

"I get him, you're on laundry detail for the next two weeks," Sam counter-offered.

They didn't look at each other but reached across Andreea to bump fists to seal the deal. In a series of synchronistic moves, they raised their shotguns to check their loads. Their heads snapped up to stare down the house, their current enemy. They both straightened, the rest of the world clearing away. Matching cocky smiles graced their faces and together they said to the house, "It's on, bitch!"

Sam put his hand on the small of Andreea's back to usher her forward as he and Dean made the surge ahead. As Dean peeled off toward the front porch and they started toward the garage's cubby entrance, Sam hollered at his brother, "Be careful!"

A sarcastic thumbs up was the only answer he got, which was fine with Sam. At least it wasn't another digit. The last thing they needed was for Charlie to get annoyed that they were flipping each other off in the presence of a lady.

When they reached the door, Andreea asked timidly, "Should I?"

"If you go first, he might let us in, yeah," said Sam.

The woman gave a _Here Goes Nothing_ swish of her head then reached for the doorknob. She tapped her fingers on it like it might be hot before securing her fingers around it. She grinned at her escort then turned the knob and pushed the door open. She took careful steps across the threshold, going in far enough to allow Sam room to get into the garage but close enough to the door that she could follow him if he went the other direction. When he was able to get through himself, they walked together to the back hall door. They went through the same motions again, feeling only a slight electrical thrum of resistance in the air.

As expected, the old man was standing his post in front of the other door that came off the kitchen, looking out at the yard. He would have seen them coming in, but he obviously wanted them there for some reason. He didn't turn around to greet them or acknowledge their presence in any way until Sam cocked his shotgun and prepared to fire it.

"You don't need that, Son," the spirit said as Sam's weapon flew out of his hands onto the floor out of reach. "I allowed you into my home to tell you that there is nothing you can do to help me. You need to stop trying to help me."

Although it was most decidedly out of the norm for him, Sam went ahead and talked to the ghost, hoping to find a way to help him anyway. "If you could tell me what you need, I could _try_."

"My Lillie will be along. I'm not leaving until I can leave with her."

"Sir, your wife isn't going to be coming. She can't."

The old man turned around to face them, his face a pool of tears. Suddenly Sam knew what the crying sound Andreea had heard had been. There had never been a woman or anything else. It was only an old man who was lost without his wife. The spirit radiated sadness at them, blowing cold into the room. The man blinked at them, his clear blue eyes flipping an internal switch from desolate to dangerous, promising consequences if he didn't like what he heard next. "We made promises."

This time it was Andreea who spoke, keeping her voice comforting and gentle to let Charlie know that she was the one in control, not Sam. "We know you did, Charlie, and I wish that there was a way that Lillie could have kept hers, but she can't."

"She didn't break it," said Charlie.

"No, she didn't," Andreea said, using the little bit she had picked up overhearing the brothers that afternoon. "It was broken for her."

"It's my promise," Charlie started vehemently. "You can't break my promise. I won't let you!"

"I don't want to break your promise. Neither does Sam. We just want to help you keep it."

Charlie advanced on them, slowly, his anger sending sparks up from various electrical elements in the room. For the first time, his voice was nowhere near gentle or grandfatherly. Sam could finally hear the change that had taken place in the man Bob had known sixty years ago. "You think you can interfere with blood? You're children. Children don't understand how to make promises the way we did when we were kids. A promise meant something back then. Your word of honor was all you had. We made that promise on our word of honor. We were coming home and we were all going to be a family again. That's family. That's blood. That is something you kids will never understand. I cannot break that promise. I will not break that promise."

Upstairs, Dean wasn't having any more luck getting through to the younger Charlie. He wanted to talk reasonably with the guy. He felt bad for him. The poor guy probably had no idea why he was there, and he certainly had no idea why he was standing guard in the hallway or under the tree all these years without his wife to guard over.

All sense of pity for the ghost was quickly vanishing as Charlie was throwing Dean around from wall to wall like a plaything. Dean Winchester was no one's plaything. And he had every intention of telling Chucky that when his ears stopped ringing.

"You are not welcome here," the spirit said.

Dean slowly hauled himself up from the carpet, attempting not to move his head too sharply in one direction or the other. He bit back a groan as he felt a strain in his neck and threatened thickly, "Look, Chuck, insurance fraud can't be much harder than credit card fraud, and I gotta tell you, I am _really_ good at credit card fraud. I _will_ burn this house down if you push me one more time."

The toolbox that had been sitting unopened behind the attic door for the last six years opened. All of the screwdrivers, hammer, and nails rose into the air and darted forward, directly toward Dean's head.

"Good answer," Dean growled as he dropped to the floor again.

From downstairs, Sam's roughly nervous voice shouted, "A LITTLE HELP HERE, DEAN!"

"COMING!"

He clawed his way to his feet, creeping along the wall until he reached the stairs, careful to keep his head down. He took the stairs two at a time, slipping on the highly polished wood four steps from the bottom to send him sprawling. By the time he got back to his feet, the younger Charlie was at the bottom of the stairs, too. Andreea's kitschy knick-knacks started flying off shelves, either getting taken out by the walls or by the books that were following close behind.

As something rather heavy collided with his back, Dean hollered, "THAT'S IT! SAM, WE'RE OUTTA HERE!"

Dean rounded the corner into the kitchen to find Andreea backed against the wall, cowering and crying. He gave himself a good hard mental kick in the ass; _Dude, civilian: what did you expect?_ Still, she was relatively safe there. The one exposed and in trouble was Sam, who was sitting up with his legs spread wide and head trying to mate with the corner of the kitchen table. The older version of Charlie was advancing on him, looking for the first time like he was losing patience with the pesky kids who kept invading his home.

"You need to leave," the old ghost said in the same sad command he'd used on them before.

"Yeah, I'm getting that," Dean grumbled. "Sam?"

The younger hunter didn't answer, but he raised his hand like he was a kindergartner wanting to ask a question. Apparently the effort was a little much, though, because his hand flopped back to the floor, palm up and limp. No question followed.

Taking that as the only sign he was going to get from his brother, Dean sidestepped toward where Sam's shotgun lay near Andreea's feet. In a whisper he told her to run and meet them out at the car, then he picked up the weapon, turned, and fired. The spirit collapsed into a formless fog. Not half a second later, the kitchen seemed to get a mind of its own and ramped up the chaos a notch.

Dropping down to his brother's side, Dean tapped Sam's wobbly face. "You okay?"

"Mean table."

"Yeah, I bet. Come on. We need to get out of here. We'll figure something else out."

There was a long _But Dean, I Don't Wanna Go To School_ whine in the back of the man's throat, but Sam allowed his brother to pull him to his feet anyway. They bent low on the way through the hall, dodging whatever came at them the best they could. Dean kept one hand in between his brother's shoulder blades, both guiding and protecting him at once. They made it to the foyer when they found Andreea crouched near the bench, clutching her head with a trickle of blood between her fingers.

"Sonofabitch! Andreea, stay there. I'll be right back for you," Dean snarled, pulling his dazed brother by the collar out the door. He threw Sam away from him a little harder than he meant to, eliciting a pained grunt as the younger hunter's foot hooked on the old wooden steps of the porch on the way down, knocking the wind out of him. He glanced his apologies then ran back toward the door to get Andreea, but the door slammed shut in his face. "Fuck."

"DEAN!" called Sam.

Without taking his focus from the door and the now screaming and banging woman on the other side, Dean yelled back, "BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHING QUICK, PROFESSOR!"

"NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING . . ."

"FINE, THEN YOU GET THE DAMSEL AND I'LL GET CASPER!"

Sam crawled onto his hands and knees, stood, then swatted his hand around the stars that circled his vision even though he knew they weren't really there. He stumbled back to the porch, hoping that this one last idea would finally work. He stuck his hand out as soon as he was within arm's length. "Give me your lighter."

"Huh?"

"Wild guess," Sam panted, still trying to catch his breath. "Just hand it over."

As Dean gave Sam the lighter, the younger of the Charlies appeared on the porch between them. He raised his hands in what would otherwise have been the universal sign of surrender, sending them both flying off into the yard once again. Dean landed hard on his stomach and hands, the ice layer on top of the snowbank cutting into his right hand as easily as a knife. While he swore, Sam landed on his back, knocking the little wind from his lungs that he'd barely been able to regain in the first place.

"That's it," Sam growled. "Dude, you're pissing me off." To Dean, he pointed back at the porch and hollered, "GET HER OUT OF THERE."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean snapped and started back toward the door. "Pushy little fucker. BET MY LATIN'S SOUNDING REALLY GOOD TO YOU RIGHT NOW, HUH?"

Sam hauled himself painfully to his feet, his right hand clutching to his injured shoulder the best that he could. He surged forward, stumbling along the way until he pretty much tripped in the snow right into the trunk of the tree. He used it to right himself then slip-slided to the garage where the bags of salt and kitty litter were laying unopened next to the door. He pulled his knife from his pocket and slit across the top of the salt bag. He hefted it over his other shoulder, keeping the bag half way shut with his hand until he got back to the yard. He let his hand go, drawing a thick circle of salt around the base of the tree.

At the sound of splintering wood, Sam looked up to see Dean kicking the front door off the hinges. Knowing his brother was okay for the moment, Sam ran back to the car and grabbed the gas can from the trunk. He soaked as much of the tree trunk and surrounding grass as he could in the noxious liquid then whipped the lighter out from his jeans pocket. A look of sadness crossed his face as he stepped back from the circle, flicked the lighter, and threw it into the grass as close to the tree as he could get.

A tortured scream arose from the tree and from behind Sam at the same time. He turned around in time to see both the young and old Charlies standing behind him, watching their tree catch fire. Where the younger man's face was quickly overcome with despair, the elder's was drawn in relief. Sam caught the metallic scent of blood coming from the tree, fresh as the day the tree was fed with it.

"You didn't break your promise," Sam told them quietly. He took a few steps to come to stand between them, regarding them both with the respect that he knew his father would have wanted him to give them. "It was broken for you."

"Sam?" Dean asked from the porch, escorting a clearly terrified Andreea down over the damaged steps.

"We're okay," said Sam, waving his hand behind his back to keep his brother away. Flanked by the two Charlies, he stood and watched the tree burn until they disappeared in flames of their own, headed to where, Sam didn't know. When they were gone, Dean came up next to him, quiet. Before Dean could even ask, Sam told him, "I'm okay."

"Good."

"You?"

"You stop getting your head rammed into walls, tables, and generally anything solid, I'll be good, too."

Sam smirked. "Yeah, I'll get that memo out right away."

"See that you do."

Andreea watched the two of them chatting back and forth, shaking her head. "You guys are weird, you know that?"

Twin grins and nods greeted her. They both said, "Thank you."

"One of my neighbors has probably called the fire department by now. Does this thing have to burn all the way down, or am I okay now?"

The brothers looked between the house and each other, doing that silent communication thing that drove most people around them crazy since they weren't in on it. There were a few hooked thumbs and raised eyebrows, a set of rolling eyes, and a smack upside the head (Dean to Sam), quickly followed by an apologetic tap on the cheek. Finally, Sam told their hostess, "It would probably be a good idea for the two of us to get out of here before the cops show up. It's late, so we can catch up with you in the morning before we leave town, if that's okay?"

Andreea glanced back at her house, watching the blaze as it crept closer to her house. "It's really over?"

"Yeah, it's really over," said Sam. "We'll check everything out again in the morning, but yeah. You could probably even stay here tonight if you wanted."

"That's okay," she said sadly. "I'll see you back at the hotel later, probably. Suddenly my really beautiful house that I paid a fortune for isn't all that beautiful anymore. I have a feeling it may be going back on the market here soon."

Dean reached over and tapped her arm playfully. "Nah. Where else are you going to find cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling?"

"Dude, what would you know about cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling?" Sam asked.

"Get in the car, Sam, or you're walking home."

Sam offered Andreea as genuine a smile as he could manage at the hour with a killer headache. "Get some sleep. You can always hire a cleaning service in the morning."

The woman hung her head, but she nodded. Sirens started to kick in down the street, so she waved them into the car. She held the frame of Dean's door until the engine roared to life, spitting a cloud into the frigid night air. Quietly, she asked him, "Is it always like this?"

Ignoring the duality of Lillie's situation to his own, Dean smiled at her and said, "You and this house were a piece of cake. I wish they could all be this easy. You were a big help. Thanks."

"Thank you," she said and shut his door. She waved as they pulled away from the curb and down the street, passing the fire trucks along the way.

The next morning, the three of them gathered once again around the car to say their goodbyes. Andreea told them about dealing with the fire department. They had been able to contain the blaze enough so that it never reached the house. She hadn't stayed there that night, choosing to remain in the hotel for one more night, but she had stopped by early in the morning. So far, she was ghoulie free, and she was pretty sure that they were right. It was going to stay that way.

They had been standing around talking for a good ten minutes of throwing duffels and supplies in the trunk when Andreea handed Dean an envelope that he couldn't bring himself to even peek in in front of her. "It isn't much, but I guess I have the feeling that it's more than a lot of people get around to giving you. I took care of the hotel, too. My town, my treat. And before you argue with me, I'm just going to remind you that it's Christmas."

"That's — " Sam started, only to be cut off.

"It's _Christmas_," she said again, shutting down that argument, too, before he could even start it. "It's the least I could do for getting the two of you knocked around the way I did. What was that you said about rabid dogs the other day? Besides, I don't imagine that this job comes with insurance benefits or paid holidays, and I won't even ask how you put gas in that guzzler of yours, unless of course it isn't a guzzler, like maybe you've done something to help that out, but seriously? You might want to think about a hybrid with as much driving as you do. Even Mother Earth needs a Christmas present now and then."

As Dean's hands reached behind him, patting down his girl's imagined temper at the suggestion that she was a lush, Sam coughed to cover his laugh. His smile could have lighted the entire block as he said, "Thank you."

"I appreciate the help. It's not like I could look someone like you up in the Yellow Pages."

"That's a scary thought," said Dean.

Andreea asked, "Do you know where you're headed next? Please say it has something to do with your family and the holidays."

Sam was about to say that they never knew which way they were going, which would have been their usual generic Jack Kerouac answer, but Dean looked at him and said pointedly, "I think our uncle Bobby might want to hear from us."

"Does he know that?" Sam laughed.

"He will when we pull up in front of the house." Dean ran a hand over his hair, looking for a way out of the awkward Minnesota Long Goodbye that Pastor Jim had been so good at putting them through — and Andreea was channeling. Finally settling on the thing that worked best for their father, he said, "Get a move on, Sam. We're burning daylight."

Another five minutes of handshakes, _thank you_'s, and a well-timed insult at Dean's baby later, they managed to get on the road with a fair amount of light still in the sky. Andreea laughed them off with one last joke, getting behind the car (which she named The Old Geezer) and pretending to push it along. Sam waved at her while Dean flipped her off.

They called Susan Beckett on the way out of town, as promised. She was saddened that they weren't going to be seeing the brothers again, but she was grateful to hear the news that her friends would finally be at rest. She didn't ask how they knew that, but she thanked them anyway. Sam wished them both a merry Christmas and told her to keep feeding her grandson's book habit. They would be proud one day.

They had been on the road for nearly an hour, running into Cities traffic, when the dreaded question finally came up. Sam knew they both had been avoiding it, but he thought it might be easier to get an honest, thought-free answer from his brother if he was concentrating on keeping his car safe in rush hour. It was a dirty trick, he knew, but he had to try something. He pressed himself against his door, trying to put as much distance between himself and Dean as possible before he gathered up just enough air to ask quietly, "Do you think a part of me is still there in Cold Oak?"

Dean felt every muscle in his back tense and ache like he was still pinned ruthlessly to that headstone in Wyoming. Over the months, the voice had morphed into a combination of his own voice and that of The Demon, but now, it was pure demon when it asked him again, _How certain are you that what you brought back is one hundred percent pure Sam?_ He wanted to answer it back, _As of this week, I'm almost positive he's not, but you aren't going to get one over on me, you sonofabitch. You can't mess with my head anymore._ The condensed version of his answer came out instead.

"Nah."

Sam seemed to chew on the answer for a while, weighing the possibility that Dean might be right. He didn't necessarily disagree with his brother when he asked, "Why?"

"Because, like you told Bob, Jess has been waiting for you. Even if we left part of you back there, she came for you. She wouldn't have left you there alone without a fight."

"Yeah," said Sam quietly.

"You aren't buying it."

Fear of both his brother's reaction and the prospect of what he was about to suggest brightened Sam's eyes as he whispered, "I want to be sure."

Dean was pretty sure he stopped breathing for a full minute, if not longer. Even thinking about the possibility, he saw himself back in that ghost town, laying there in the middle of the puddled road holding his baby brother's lifeless body, completely helpless. There hadn't been a single night since that moment that he hadn't found himself back there, but even somehow in his dreams he knew that it wasn't real. He could sense Sam there in the next bed, warm, safe, and sound. He didn't know how he knew, but he could feel that if he went back there, that sense of security would be stripped from him for his remaining nights. Gathering the breath to tell his brother just how scared he was of this one thing was hard. His lungs burned as he said, "Don't ask me to go back there, Sam. I can't."

"Neither can I." Sam's knees bounced against the door, rattling the change he'd dropped into the lip of the armrest. He gave Dean a minute to adjust to the suggestion then said wryly, "I guess that means we're going, huh?"

"I guess so." The resigned look in Dean's eyes was quickly replaced by the mischievous glint that promised bot danger and results. "But this time, we're bringing a few friends along."

"Friends?"

"Yep. My good friends — Bic, Zippo, and Morton," Dean grinned. A shadow of seriousness hit his voice as he met his brother's eyes head on. "They've never let me down before."

Sam gave it a moment, thinking on the truth of that statement. As crazy as it all sounded, there was a certain comfort in that. Hunting and the supernatural may have taken just about everything they had ever known to be good in their lives, but the _tools_ of the trade had come through for them every time. Good or bad. Sam nodded, the corners of his mouth twitching in agreement. "I like the sound of that."

— **December 13, 2007 —**

Ten minutes into his shift, the county sheriff called in to dispatch a blaze coming from a patch of trees that no one in their right mind had gone into in near a century. The residents of the county had all heard the stories about Cold Oak; they all knew it was the last place on Earth they wanted to go near. It was too far into the dark of winter for lightning to have caught. The town had been abandoned before electricity had come to it. If there had been any kerosene left to light the rotting buildings, it was probably too old to catch fire anyway. He told himself that, should the fire go any further than the skirt of trees surrounding the town, he would call someone in to investigate. Otherwise, all he could do was breathe the first breath of truly fresh air he had had in his entire life, his town and jurisdiction no longer stifled under the watchful, eerie eye of the town so haunted it had a life of its own.

He watched the burn until he got another call to come to the bend in the road that had once been a one church, two bar town. In the parking lot of the Gas 'N Groc, the county vehicle that had been stolen from under their noses around sunset was waiting for him, keys in the ignition. Upon closer inspection, he found a note taped to the steering wheel.

_Sorry we ran out of gas or we would have brought her back.  
Tank's full now. You need more salt.  
Thanks._

The sheriff took off his winter gear hat and scratched his head, confused and actually kind of amused. Whatever the kids who had taken the joyride in the county salter had done with her, she seemed to be fine now. At least they had been polite about it. If he could manage to get her back in the shop without anyone but the night watch knowing, he would thank his lucky stars. Those kids should, too.

On his way back to the shop, he passed a black muscle car that tipped the radar going seven miles over the limit. He let his generous mood cut that driver some slack as well. He was in a good mood tonight. He looked toward the rising smoke of the blaze down the road and wished he had chocolate and marshmallows in the car.

As Sam drove past the county sheriff's squad car, he reached over to grab his brother's wrist. Dean was practically bouncing in his seat at the sight, hyper from too many days that week of full sleep and decent food. Seemingly all of ten years old, Dean was actually going to reach up and wave at the cop. The next thing Sam knew, his brother would probably be pulling on the invisible line by his window to get passing truckers to blow their horns, too. He shook his head, rueful smile on his face. _Some people's kids . . . _

It wasn't until they were barely an hour out from Bobby's place that Dean let himself feel the pull of sleep. He wasn't sure what it was, but even burning down Cold Oak and sending its occupants back to Hell where they belonged wasn't giving him quite the peace of mind that he had hoped it would give him. He could see a certain weight lifted from Sam's shoulders, though. Maybe that was the point of it. Maybe Sam needed to be the one who got a better night's sleep from this. Maybe the point was just to have the answer.

Yeah, he had to admit, he'd let that question fester since that night the Devil's Gate opened. He had replayed The Demon's questions a few times — _okay, a few hundred, but really, who was counting?_ — wondering in the back of his mind if Sam had maybe come back a little wrong. It wasn't like his brother to be so cold when it came to killing any being, let alone a human. The night Sam had sneaked out to confront the crossroads demon had damned near done his heart in thinking that his brother hadn't hesitated to kill the demon's poor host. But then he'd seen Sam's reaction to the idea of killing Gordon and knew. Sam hadn't come back wrong; he'd come back leaving part of himself behind. Sam had left the last shred of innocence he had on that muddy road when Jake stabbed him in the back. The only part of Sam that was lost was his ability to trust anyone other than Dean ever again. That part did break Dean's heart, more than he thought possible. But he knew he had his answer, and that was the important part. Sam was and would be just fine.

Dean had every intention of having a good long talk with Bobby when they got to the man's home, so he let his eyes droop for the rest of the way to try to catch a little bit of a nap. He wouldn't say he'd sleep when he was dead since he guessed that probably was the last thing Hell had planned for him, but he knew that his time was important to the people he loved. Besides, a beer by the fireplace with Bobby was just what he needed.

As he fell asleep, he thought of Lillie and what Sam thought about her not being able to handle the idea of spending ten years with her husband only to have to leave him. One last look at Sam in his concentration on the road told Dean that he didn't have to wonder at all. He had made the right decision. One year could be enough. Together, they were going to make this year enough to get him through anything.

(End Part Four of Four)

* * *

**Author's Note:** Now that this is over . . . This story was inspired by two songs — _Jenny Lynn_ by Becky Schlegel and _American Anthem_ by Norah Jones. Somehow they morphed into this. When I figure out how I got there, I'll let you know. Heh. / The record store where they get all of their supplies is real. It's a shop called The Electric Fetus. You can find them in St Cloud, Duluth, and Minneapolis. If you've never been in one and are close by, check it out. They're awesome and put Spencer's to shame. / Yes, I went to school in St Cloud, so the directions, hotel, and traffic report are real, but otherwise, it was a convenient location to tell the story, nothing more.

Anyhoo, if you've made it all the way to the end here, THANK YOU! Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
